


A Lick and a Promise

by tackytiger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Back to Hogwarts, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Magic, Brandy - Freeform, Case Fic, Christmas, Christmas at Hogwarts, Clothing Porn, Competent Draco Malfoy, Desk Sex, Domesticity, Don't copy to another site, Draco Malfoy is a Snappy Dresser, Drinking, Falling In Love, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, H/D Erised 2019, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Professors, Kissing, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Magical Creatures, Magical Theory, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Masturbation, Minor Child Injuries, Minor Injuries, Mystery, Office Sex, POV Alternating, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Past Draco Malfoy/Original Male Character(s), Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Powerful Harry Potter, Professor Draco Malfoy, Professor Harry Potter, Semi-Public Sex, Sentient Hogwarts, Sharing a Bath, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Undercover, Undressing, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Vampires, minor animal injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 55,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21599401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: Something sinister stirs in Hogwarts!When magical creatures and students at the school are hit with a debilitating blood curse, Minerva McGonagall approaches the Ministry for help.Star Auror Harry Potter seems to be the obvious choice to go undercover—as DADA Professor, naturally. He’s going to need the help of the Ministry’s foremost expert in blood magic to get to the bottom of the mystery, though, and he’s not entirely convinced that going back to Hogwarts with Draco Malfoy is a good idea.Things are complicated between them—what’s new?—but they know they have to learn to work together (and keep their hands off each other in the corridors) in order to solve this case. Luckily for them, Hogwarts itself wants to lend a hand.A tale of love, lessons, and learning to really live.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 519
Kudos: 2093
Collections: H/D Erised 2019





	1. A Rock and a Hard Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LowerEastSide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowerEastSide/gifts).



> Dear Lower—I have thoroughly enjoyed stalking you around the hallowed halls of Tumblr and the Drarry Discord to get inspiration for this fic. You asked for romance, and I hope I’ve given it to you! Nothing is plain sailing with these two oblivious idiots, though, so there are definitely some twists and turns along the way. It’s been a delight getting to know you, and I really hope that you enjoy what I’ve written for you.
> 
> Huge thanks to the mods for their patience and support, as well as their sterling work in running this gorgeous fest. It has been a pleasure to take part.
> 
> Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wonderful betas for their ceaseless support, cheerleading, and generosity. My world is a better place with you in it—thank you for everything.

Harry would never have imagined that it was possible to eat a cauldron cake mutinously, but he's doing quite a fine job of it, if he does say so himself.

Vikander is currently ignoring him, though she _had_ allowed herself the luxury of one particularly energetic roll of the eyes when she saw Harry on his way back from the tea trolley. Vikander is very much of the opinion that the rightful order of things should be _incident reports first, cauldron cakes later_.

Harry disagrees, and he thinks his protest against her hidebound insistence on the importance of routine admin is particularly well-punctuated by the level of loud crunching he's achieving, considering that the cake is mostly sponge.

Vikander is a great partner for Harry in so many ways, but at times like this, Harry misses Ron ferociously. Ron had always been first in line when the trolley wix came around. But instead, Ron is probably up on the fourth floor, eating cucumber sandwiches and… and… something else posh, like _petits fours_ , no doubt. Not cauldron cakes, anyway. Harry is fairly certain that Ron knows as little about _petits fours_ as Harry himself does, but if he knows Ron, that isn't going to stop him from eating them. 

And it isn't that Ron doesn't deserve _petits fours_ , what ever the fuck they even are. It's just that, when Harry had imagined being an Auror (and if he's honest, he hadn't actually thought about it very hard before he went and did it), he had imagined that he and Ron would be eating _petits fours_ together. Or rather, fighting crime and taking down dark wizards together—to be fair, if he'd put his mind to it, he could probably have predicted the sorry dearth of bite-sized confectionery in advance. 

But he would never have imagined that Ron would streak through training with ease, while Harry spent the three years feeling as though he was mired in a seething morass of too-high expectations and too much paperwork. Because it turns out that skill in defence magic isn't actually the most important thing when it comes to being an Auror—tactical thinking, patience, and admin skills supersede a cool Patronus and a willingness to die, any day. 

The former two Ron has in abundance, the lucky sod, and the latter just comes naturally for anyone who spends their evenings sitting across from Hermione and her ever-growing pile of books on Magical Law. And Harry is so happy for Ron—the look of disbelieving joy on Ron's face when he was named Graduate of the Year at their passing out ceremony is still Harry's Patronus memory—but he just misses Ron, that's all. Because obviously, as the department's stellar graduate, and with an Order of Merlin to boot, Ron wasn't ever going to spend long on the beat with the other new Aurors. Ron is a strategist, an organiser, and the possessor of a rare absolute clarity of vision. He was wasted patrolling Diagon and breaking up late-night wand fights, and everyone in the bloody Auror department knew it. 

They let him put in a few months on the beat, just so no one could claim they were playing favourites with one of the heroes of the Second Wizarding War—and they were some of the happiest months of Harry's life, working side by side with Ron and really feeling like they were, finally, in charge of something important—but then Ron was moved out of the active Auror division and into the strategic planning department. 

Five years down the line, he's heading up the Minister's DMLE Liaison Division, and in charge of conceiving and implementing tactical efficiency and safety strategies. Under his watch, solve rates have increased significantly year on year, and the Wizarding Resources department has reported a 120% increase in job satisfaction amongst DMLE personnel, due to Ron's initiative of streaming recruits according to their strengths and interests, and then deploying them into more focused roles upon graduation.

That was good news for Harry, of course, because it meant that he could be put where he was really needed. But it did mean moving even further away from Ron—because, while Harry is many things, a paper-pushing Ministry desk jockey he is not.

And Harry is dynamite in the field, everyone knows that. His instinct is bang on, and his offensive spellwork is exquisite—deliberate and subtle and totally uncompromising. His defence skills have become even more refined with time, and every Auror in the department knows that Potter is the one you want at your back in a wandfight. 

Yes, Harry is blisteringly fast, his wandwork a riot of heat and fury and precision. It's why Ron has placed him in the Serious Crimes Division, and why he spends most of his time running down the _really_ bad guys. It's worthy work, and Harry is pretty sure that it's a great thing to be able to do, to help people everyday. 

It's just, it's a bit… tiring, sometimes. When he's fighting—his aim true, his spellwork ringing with clarity and precision, his hexes unfurling swift and brutal from his wand—it seems like the best job in the world. But after the fighting is done, he feels the crawl of exhaustion run through him and settle into his core. Because there's never any end to it—it seems to be just fighting, then paperwork, then more fighting. Harry sometimes feels like he's been doing this work his whole life—seeing the bad in the world, and having to master it, sometimes without even really knowing what he's doing. 

He should be used to it, he knows that, should be inured to the despicable things human beings do to themselves and others, but every fresh badness hits him anew. Every horror is another crippling blow, every sting of tragedy hurts him as much as the last, every new crime reeks with the particular stench of its own tawdry filth.

Harry sometimes thinks that he has forgotten what goodness feels like.

But he's lucky, he tells himself, with his brilliant friends and the Weasleys, and he's even managed to land himself a… well, not a _relationship_ as such, because that's entirely too neat a category to describe what is essentially just lots of glorious sex with somone he only sees sporadically and who appears to have commitment issues to rival those of Harry himself, but Harry will take what he can get and enjoy it when he can—even if he does have the niggling feeling that something _more_ is just out of reach. And anyway, the prick can't even be arsed to owl half the time when he's away, so it's not as if Harry has someone he can go home to (someone he can make a home _around_ , he thinks wistfully, before he shuts the whole thought down for fear of thoroughly depressing himself). 

He sighs through a mouthful of fondant, takes a slurp of his tea, and gingerly eases the top file from the dangerously teetering pile that's rapidly taking over his desk. The paperwork is very nearly worse than dealing with the hateful, depraved, and dissolute elements of the job. It's _never-ending_ , and sheer resentment renders Harry painfully slow, and sloppy to boot. He's trying to improve though—for one thing, Vikander's eyes are going to roll fully out of her skull someday if he doesn't, and Harry does _not_ want that on his conscience. 

And for another thing, Harry has always wanted to move into the training field, taking on new recruits and sharpening them up, gently guiding them into harnessing their own particular powers, allowing them the confidence and freedom to explore their own particular strengths. Like Remus had for him, he sometimes thinks, with a lancing stab of regret and guilt so finely-honed over the years that it never fails to leave him breathless and gritty-eyed. He had even applied for the training post (twice in fact, and got as far as interview stage the second time). The practical side of the interviews had gone brilliantly, Harry thought—the students were bright-eyed with delight and wonder at Harry's demonstrations, eager to learn from him and desperate to impress. The perfect combination, Harry had thought, relaxing into it and letting himself be led by the throb of adrenaline in his bloodstream and the narrowing of his focus down to the visceral act of calling up his magic and casting, casting, casting. 

The students had been spellbound (literally, in some cases—they couldn't close their mouths long enough to cast the counterspells to Harry's barrage of jinxes, basking too long in the warmth of the spitting fire of his spellwork and getting burned in the process).

It was why it had been even more disappointing when Ron told Harry that he hadn't been selected as the new Auror-in-Charge of the Training Division. Ron had been as pragmatic as ever, though there was a definite tinge of regret to his tone when he broke the news.

"It's no use, mate—we can't go with you on this one. Not this time, anyway." 

And as Harry gaped at him, he went on, "Oh, don't look at me like that, Harry. You know one of the most crucial parts of the training is teaching them the admin side of things. Like it or not, we're the visible arm of magical law enforcement, and I've spent the last five years working to make sure that we can never be accused of skirting any of the laws we're meant to uphold. _That's_ why the paperwork is important—it keeps us accountable, means we're always conscious of how things are supposed to be done. I can't in good conscience hire someone who, under section 7a of his last eight major crime reports, scribbled a large question mark and a picture of a sad face under the part where you're supposed to list the measures used to detain the criminals!"

Harry's reply was as close to a disdainful scoff as he ever got with Ron. 

"How am I supposed to remember what spells I use to take those evil pricks down, mate? Half the time I'm casting wandlessly with my left hand, anyway. I don't know what I used! It's a stupid question—as long as I got the bad guys, why does it matter how I did it?"

It was a testament to Ron's patience that he merely groaned at this, especially considering how many times they'd had this argument in the past.

"That's why you're supposed to check your Pensieve memories! And because without filling in that part of the form, you can't activate the VeriRecord Charm. And without the charm, we can't be sure that people are telling us the truth when they report the arrest procedures. And without knowing that people are following arrest procedures, we can't be sure that our Aurors aren't out there willy-nilly performing Cruciatus, or worse."

His voice softened, and when he leaned forward, with his elbows planted firmly on his desk and his blue eyes clear and unguarded, he looked impossibly young and sincere. "I trust you, Harry, you know that. I trust you to do the right thing, always. But that's not enough, not for this job. I need to be able to prove why I trust you. And I need to know that I'm keeping track of everyone, because I can't be sure that I can trust all of _them_ to do what's right. It's not only about justice—it's about upholding the law. Harry, you told us in your interview that you see the Auror Code of Conduct as more of a guide than a requirement! In front of Robards! And the Minister! Have you considered that maybe you're just not very good at respecting authority? Toe the line for me next time, you fucking twat—just give me an excuse to give you the job instead of talking yourself out of it. And sort your fucking paperwork out before you apply the next time."

So that had all been fairly clear and unequivocal—the DMLE wanted Harry, but they wanted him harnessed, and they wanted him as a blunt instrument. Even Ron wasn't on his side on this one, and after yet another argument in the Leaky over too many Firewhiskies, Ron had snapped and properly shouted at him, asking him why Harry felt like he was above following the procedures that every single other bloody Auror in the place followed. 

It's the creeping shame of that awful memory that has Harry scribbling details into all the correct places on his reports now, though it's slow and tedious work. Across from him, Vikander smiles smugly down at her outbox as she taps her wand smartly to send the crisp pile of neat forms off to the file room. 

It's almost a relief when their wands go off with the furious, insistent buzz that indicates an emergency. Despite her overly-deferential attitude to the Ministry hierarchy, Vikander is razor-sharp, and downright dangerous when she wants to be, and she and Harry are first at the operations post for briefing and Apparition coordinates. 

But there's no need for directions, because the white-faced wizard at the ops post is watching wide-eyed as a sinuous tabby cat Patronus prowls impatiently around him, and Harry only needs to recognise McGonagall's crisp Scottish accent, coloured with a controlled desperation Harry has only heard from her on a few horribly memorable occasions in the past, before he hauls Vikander into a reckless Side-Along to the gates of Hogwarts and then they're just running, running, running towards the castle.

* * *

By the time he reaches the castle, Harry has to bend over, hands on his knees, gasping for the breath that he had half-lost when he heard McGonagall calling for help at Hogwarts, and that he had finished losing in his reckless sprint from the gates of the castle to the front door. Even his hours on the Ministry sparring mats, and in the Muggle boxing club he's joined, haven't prepared him for running half a mile full-tilt, with his heart lodged in his throat from terror.

Vikander still hasn't caught up with him, though he can see her approaching at a steady jog, and he's finally caught enough breath that he feels like he probably isn't going to fall over or be sick anytime soon. 

He straightens, pulls his wand, and presses his hand to the dear, familiar castle door that still towers over him. Nothing happens. Because _of course_ the school isn't open—it's shut for the summer holidays, and the honey-gold grain of the oak front door is body-warm from the oppressive heat of the August sun.

Harry growls in frustration, and uses his fist to hammer at the wood, and when his raft of Auror-strength opening charms don't work (because _Hogwarts_ ), he whips out a swift Patronus and tells it to find the Headmistress, as a matter of urgency.

Vikander is by his side now, barely out of breath because _of course_ she had taken the run at a sensible pace, and he casts her one baleful glance before resuming his increasingly panicky thumping at the door. It's probably only a minute before they hear the slow grind of the ancient locks turning, and Harry's exhalation is almost a sob of relief when he sees Minerva there, hands outstretched towards him, looking mercifully healthy and unharmed, though perhaps a bit pale, and tighter around the lips than usual.

"Auror Potter, how good of you to join us," she says, and she sounds so much like _herself_ , so like home, that before he can catch himself, Harry finds himself grinning at her with the warmth of his whole heart behind it. She permits herself the barest twinkle of a return smile before she straightens and steps aside. "As you can see, the rest of your team has already arrived. My apologies for the delay in answering the door, I was adjusting the Floo wards to admit the other Aurors."

Harry, sweat-licked and flushed and breathless from the running and the heat, allows himself an all-too-brief moment to close his eyes in mortification. Because _obviously_ Hogwarts has a Floo connection to the Ministry. Harry wouldn't even have had to wait for Minerva to admit him—she's had him keyed into the wards ever since he left school. Minerva has never made a fuss about it, but Harry is still a frequent visitor (though he does usually Floo in to George in Hogsmeade first, then takes a leisurely fly up to the school). On the last day of Eighth Year, in her customary understated manner, and in a tone of stern admonishment that brooked no argument, Minerva made it clear that Hogwarts would always be a home for Harry. He doesn't visit too often—he definitely doesn't want to make her regret the statement—and he never overstays his welcome, but it is a rare month that doesn't see Harry visit at least twice, if only for a quick dinner and a stroll around the grounds with Nev and Hagrid. 

When he opens his eyes to meet the bemused gazes of the other Aurors, Harry knows that there's simply no way to gloss over the fact that, instead of calmly Flooing to the crime scene, he had panicked in a way that you wouldn't even see in the greenest of new recruits. The cloying remnants of that panic are written all over him, scrawled in runnels of sweat and dust. He can't hope to hide it, and behind him he hears Vikander's soft snort of amusement, though she presses a hand to his shoulder in a gesture of support that lets him know that she's there for him, even if she thinks he's barmy. He firms his jaw, jerks his head at the team, and decides to brazen it out. Because even though Minerva is here, and unharmed, _someone_ must still be in danger. And if someone in Hogwarts is in trouble, Harry needs to do something. 

"Which way, Minerva?" He's pleased to hear that his voice is steady, measured.

She turns on her heel, still as upright and swift and inexorable as she had been when calling the statues of Hogwarts into battle seven years before, and still so much the Headmistress that when she bids them to follow, they all move in a rush behind her.

"This way, please. We need to get to the Duelling Room."

* * *

"But it doesn't make sense. We're the Aurors, for Merlin's sake!"

Harry almost stops pacing for long enough to take issue at Cahalane's petulant tone, because Cahalane may have been homeschooled, but doesn't he know how he should be speaking to Professor Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, Order of Merlin Class Two, general all-round legend and war hero? 

But Vikander shakes her head at Harry in warning, accompanying the gesture with a flinty-eyed stare (because _technically_ Cahalane is the commanding officer here), so Harry contents himself with a vigorous eye roll and continues to stride back and forth outside the double entrance doors to the new Hogwarts Duelling Room. The doors which, despite the application of every standard, Auror-issue unlocking spell in the manual (and a number of, shall we say, less _official_ charms which Harry has surreptitiously been flicking at the doors when everyone else has their backs turned) are steadfastly refusing to open. 

Cahalane continues, blithely unaware of Harry's glaring and Minerva's unimpressed gaze. "If you believe that a student is in danger inside that room, Headmistress, then we need to get inside. I can't even begin to imagine what negative entity is powerful enough to hold the doors against Minerva McGonagall, three Senior Aurors, and the Saviour of the Wizarding World, of course." Cahalane casts a sour look Harry's way—he's Seeker for the Tactical Ops' Quidditch team, and he still hasn't forgiven Harry and the Major Crimes team for storming to victory 180-20 in the last game of the Ministry Employee League. Harry smiles sweetly at him, then pointedly turns his back on Cahalane to address Minerva.

"Minerva, the wards didn't show any signs of a breach, is that correct? And you're confident that the doors have not been locked by magical means?"

"Correct, Auror Potter," Minerva replies. "We only noticed that the doors were locked by chance—the Duelling Room is not usually used on a Wednesday during the summer break. As you know, in recent years we have extended our accommodations to those students who, for various reasons, cannot or will not return home for the summer vacation. As Headmistress, I believe that Hogwarts should be a home for the students who need it all year round." She smiles at Harry then, briefly and meaningfully, before continuing. 

"We run a variety of summer clubs—not lessons of course, but activities and pastimes for the handful of students who are with us for the summer break. Duelling Club takes place on Fridays, ordinarily, but this week Professor Proudfoot has been called away so I agreed to take the duellers myself today instead.

"When I arrived to find the door locked, I immediately became concerned. Never before has the Headmaster of Hogwarts encountered a door that cannot be opened. It was an unusual enough occurrence that I immediately called an emergency assembly of all remaining students and personnel, and we found that Betsy Clifford was missing. We had another incident, just a few weeks ago, in which a student was injured. So I thought it prudent to contact the Auror department."

Cahalane begins another blustering round of ostentatious unlocking charms, but Harry remains silent, sifting through Minerva's statement. 

"Minerva, you said that another student had been injured recently? Were the circumstances suspicious? Do you have reason to believe that this is a similar situation?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Last month, a student was found semi-conscious and injured in one of the Fifth Year classrooms. There was no sign of any attacker, but it seems quite certain that someone harmed her. She had no real memory of the event, but she had a minor injury when we found her, and is still in the hospital wing four weeks later, suffering from exhaustion and lethargy. Despite Madam Pomfrey's best efforts, she isn't responding to either magical or Muggle treatment, and remains incapacitated. You can see why I was concerned to find a door inexplicably locked today, and a student missing under similar circumstances."

Minerva sighs, a small, defeated sound.

"I'm worried that Hogwarts is somehow trapping the students. The student who was hurt last month remembers very little, but her last conscious memory of the event is that she was practicing her Patronus Charm—she was very nearly there with it too—and at lunchtime when she tried to leave, the door wouldn't open."

The silence that follows Minerva's words is profound. Even Cahalane is stunned into muteness.

Harry is struggling to grasp what Minerva is saying, and she looks drained and exhausted as she continues.

"A locked door that no one can open, here at Hogwarts? It shouldn't be possible. If someone spelled the door shut, then I am very confident that I would be able to undo their spellwork—not to mention when we include the contribution of such an accomplished Auror team. And all of our Checking Charms and your diagnostic spells come up with nothing. This door is not spelled shut against us. It is, quite simply, that Hogwarts does not want us to get inside. Hogwarts is standing against us. Have you noticed the portraits are missing their occupants?"

The team looks around. Harry had already noticed that the twin portraits that flank the entrance were empty, but even Minerva rapping smartly on the wooden frames with her wand and demanding by the order of the Headmistress that the subjects return has no effect. "Another unprecedented occurrence. The portraits are hiding."

At this, Cahalane stirs. "It's no use," he says decisively. "If you're certain there's a student trapped in there, and the doors won't admit us, then we need to take assertive action."

He shoulders Harry out of the way, then summons his partner with a jerk of his chin. 

"Stand back, Headmistress, we're taking this section of the wall down. This might get messy."

Minerva is as agitated as Harry has ever seen her, but she's still indomitable-seeming as she steps between the Aurors and the wall of the duelling room.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that, Auror Cahalane. Hogwarts is an ancient building, which has spent centuries absorbing the magic of its founders, and of every student and teacher to walk its halls since. One does not, _cannot_ , wilfully destroy any part of Hogwarts. We must think of another way."

Cahalane's face is stern. "I appreciate your concern for your school, Headmistress. But my primary focus is on liberating a student in danger. I'm the Special Ops lead on this case, which means I have the authority to overrule even you in the interests of preservation of life. Now I tell you again, Headmistress, _step aside_."

Harry moves before he's even aware of it, the force of his rage powering through his bloodstream in a savage rush. To imply that Minerva McGonagall would place more value on bricks and mortar than on the life of a student—how did an _idiot_ like Cahalane even get through training? Surely he knows that Hogwarts is far, far more than just a building. Harry stands close enough to Minerva that their shoulders touch.

"If you try a _Bombarda Maxima_ on that wall, Cahalane, you could take us all down. Hogwarts suffered so much trauma in the Battle, it took us months to convince it to let us rebuild. Do you know how long it took us to cleanse it of all the Dark Magic it absorbed? Well, you wouldn't I suppose, you took your NEWTs in Beauxbatons in the end, didn't you? You don't _destroy things_ in Hogwarts. If it's locking itself up, then it's trying to tell us something. We just need to find out what it is."

Behind him, Harry feels a shift, the merest tremble in the air, as though the very walls are sighing. He reaches behind him, puts a palm flat to the wall. _There, there_ , he thinks.

Minerva's voice is crisp and unimpressed. "Auror Potter is entirely correct. Hogwarts itself is a magical construction, and as such has spent centuries absorbing the magical essence of generations. We do not interfere in its workings; rather, we work with it to provide a safe haven and home for our many students. An aggressive approach is only likely to further endanger the student, and ourselves."

Cahalane looks truly enraged, and his voice quavers with fury when he addresses Harry.

"I hope I don't have to remind you, Auror Potter, that Ops have the lead on this case. So I outrank you here. Step away."

Cahalane moves as he speaks, and he places a firm hand on Minerva's upper arm, as if to steer her away. That's as far as he gets, though, because Harry has him at wandpoint against the wall before he takes another step. Harry is in a rage, his blood hammering in his ears, so hard that he barely hears the gasp of shock from the other Aurors, or the strangled choke of rage that Cahalane makes around the press of the wand in the softest part of his throat.

"Don't make me Body-Bind you," Harry whispers. "Keep your hands off her, and keep your wand off Hogwarts."

Cahalane twists away then, lithe and muscular as a snake, and Harry has to slam a forearm across his chest to keep him pinned to the wall. He can feel the warning surge of his power from his core, the dangerous crackle of it electric in the palm of his hand. He breathes into it, feels the urgent press of it flowing through him, and Cahalane seems to sense it, because he stops struggling, though his voice is low and bitter when speaks.

"You're going to regret this, Auror Potter. Get your hands off me or I'll have you out on your ear before you can blink, and then I'm coming back with a blasting team and that wall is coming down whether you and McGonagall like it or not."

And that's it, really, because Harry can _feel_ Hogwarts shivering and creaking in protest, and Minerva is rigid with anger at his side, and before he knows it his magic is fizzing from him in a rush of protective, instinctive action. Cahalane curls in on himself, crumpling like a wet sack under the crush of Harry's wandless Body-Bind. When Harry steps away, Cahalane slides slowly to the floor. There's something in the air, an expectant, approving sort of hum, and Minerva nods at Harry as he looks helplessly from her down to Cahalane, and back again. He's shaking from the aftershock of the rage and adrenaline, and he steadies himself against the carved lintel lest he stumble under the weight of what he's gone and done. Because he's got away with skipping out on paperwork before, but he doesn't think Ron or Robards is going to be particularly forgiving of him folding a technically-superior Auror into a little ball.

As he touches the wood, leans his forehead against the wall, he whispers under his breath, "Please." And as easily as that, at just one word from him, there's a click—the shockingly mundane sound of a lock turning.

In the heavy silence that follows, the creak of the door swinging open on its hinges sounds like a scream.

* * *

The student is indeed inside, and she's sitting propped up against the very wall that Cahalane would have happily sent an Auror-strength _Bombarda Maxima_ through. Harry spares one vicious glance of satisfaction back to where Rooney is performing the counterspell to Harry's Bind on Cahalane (with little effect so far, Harry thinks spitefully).

Betsy Clifford is so pale and still that for one heartstopping moment, Harry thinks she might be dead, but then he sees the tentative rise and fall of her chest and he and Vikander move like clockwork to start emergency first aid. Betsy has an injury on her wrist, the wet slide of still-fresh blood gleaming livid and obscene in the sunlight. Her head lolls heavily, and her mouth looks red and swollen against the blanched pallor of her skin. Her breathing is shallow as Harry and Vikander place her under Stasis, and the syrupy-slow blink of the Heart Monitor Charm casts an uncanny glow as they rush her through the corridors to the hospital wing. 

She wakes, briefly, as they transfer her into the bed, her hands fluttering and releasing like the wings of an injured bird. She tries to speak, coughs, gasps a shallow, terrified breath, and then tries again. "Where is he?" she asks. "Where did he go?" But before Harry and Vikander can ask her more, Madam Pomfrey is there with a steely look in her eye and her wand already out, casting a Calming Charm, and Betsy's breath stutters into something deeper as she closes her eyes back into sleep.

They return to the Duelling Room, finding a baleful Rooney securing the scene, and Cahalane gone (presumably back to the Ministry to get Harry fired, but Harry will deal with that when he has to, and for now there's investigating to be done). 

At the far end of the room, clustered in a huge frame over the fireplace, are a number of portraits. And if Harry isn't mistaken, the severe-looking woman in the black dress, and doughy man in opulent furs, are the two portraits that _should_ have been guarding the doors to the Duelling Room. They're standing in the teeming, chattering group, but when Harry approaches the frame, they all fall silent.

"Have you lot been here the whole time?" he asks, unease making him brusque. "You two—you're supposed to be on the door here. Where were you? Did you see what happened?"

The female portrait sniffs haughtily.

"My husband and I were just enjoying a stroll around the portraits to visit some of our friends," she says icily. "We're perfectly entitled to take a break from time to time. We're not at the beck and call of some rude little Auror."

The voice that rings out from beside Harry is cool and authoritative. "But you _are_ beholden to the Headmistress of Hogwarts," Minerva rejoinders. "All of the magic of Hogwarts is bound to the head of the school. When I call for aid, you are supposed to answer. Now I insist that you tell me what took place inside this room."

A low murmur begins from all the portraits, barely a susurration of sound, but bringing with it an anxious buzz. 

A beautifully-painted centaur steps to the foreground of the painting, and drops into a low bow.

"Headmistress, we have pledged our allegiance to you and your predecessors since the first brushstroke that created us. But we are profoundly tethered to the magic of Hogwarts—we are part of the same magic that pulses through the very walls, and the stones at your feet. We cannot act against the very power that hails us into being. When the castle calls us forth, we go. We answer to you, but we _are_ Hogwarts, and if we have to choose between answering your call, or the call of the castle, then I think you will find yourself disappointed in the outcome."

Minerva looks shocked, and the naked fear on her face forces Harry to be gentle where he would not be otherwise, as he thanks the portraits for their help and turns away in consternation.

* * *

It's a two cauldron cakes sort of day, Harry thinks, and even Vikander seems to agree, because she goes with Harry to the tea trolley and her eyes don't even so much as flicker when he places his order. In fact, she gets one for herself too, and with their mugs of tea and them both ignoring the pile of unfiled reports on Harry's desk, things are almost cosy in their office.

They both know they're just waiting, though—they have been ever since first thing that morning when a red paper airplane memo flew into their office and stabbed Harry repeatedly in the head with its pointy nose. He's been summoned to meet with the top brass—even Kingsley's in on this one—and he's pretty sure it's not to commend him on his measured tactical approach to dealing with Cahalane.

Cahalane has definitely already reported the incident at Hogwarts—in fact, when Harry and Vikander Flooed back into the office the previous evening once they'd finished taking all the statements at Hogwarts, Cahalane was still sequestered with his union rep in the Wizarding Resources department.

The trouble is, Harry thinks, he wouldn't do anything differently if he had the chance. Okay, so perhaps he could have been less thorough with the _bind_ part of his Body-Bind, but he knows deep down, like he knows he'd walk in front of an _Avada_ for Hermione or Ron, that he could never knowingly stand by while someone harmed Hogwarts. 

He wonders how often things like this are going to happen before someone starts to think that maybe Harry Potter isn't cut out for the Aurors. It's only what he's thought about himself a hundred times before, blinking into shocked wakefulness out of yet another anxiety dream, lying heavy with dread at the thought of the day ahead. And where will that leave him? Fighting is the only thing he's ever been good at—the only thing he's ever been trained for. He was tempered for so long, shaped into a weapon before he could talk, and he's not sure he would know how to function if he was decommissioned now.

His wand alarm buzzes, and he takes a minute to wash down the last of the cake with tepid tea, before slinging on his uniform robes (and if he pinned on his Order of Merlin medal before he left the house that morning… well, it can't hurt to remind them who they're dealing with, can it? Harry needs all the help he can get today).

The journey up to the Fourth Floor feels like a slog. It's not _quite_ up there with walking into the Forbidden Forest to meet Voldemort, a load of Death Eaters, and certain doom, but it's certainly on a par with the Triwizard champions' opening dance at the Yule Ball. 

Kingley's office doesn't seem to be supplied with _petit fours_ , but there's a pot of strong coffee on a table in the anteroom, and Ron's welcome handshake is solid and reassuring as Harry enters the room. Kingsley is also present, of course, along with Robards, but Harry is surprised to see that the conference table also hosts a sharp-eyed woman in throat-to-toe black robes, and none other than Professor McGonagall. 

Kingsley looks grave, but that's not unusual, and Minerva's gaze is definitely softer than usual when she inclines her head in greeting. Robards looks enraged and a bit purple around the jowls (though again, not unusual), but Ron is the one who's really making Harry nervous. Ron has his chess face on, and his gaze is detached, almost speculative, as he glances from Harry to the black-robed woman. Harry doesn't think Ron looks quite as calculating as his eleven-year-old self did the night he sacrificed himself on the giant chessboard, but it's a close-run thing, and means he's plotting something big. It bodes ill for Harry, and he's had quite enough of that for one lifetime. 

"Let's get started then," Ron suggests. He doesn't quite rub his hands together maniacally, but the sense of it is there. "Harry, this is Ash Dearraid—she's a department head within the DMLE and she'll be sitting in on the meeting today." The severe-looking woman nods at Harry, briefly but appraisingly.

"I hear there was a bit of trouble at Hogwarts yesterday," Kingsley begins, and Harry winces (internally, he's not quite at the outward wince stage yet). 

Robards is mottled with the high colour of spreading rage, and when he speaks, it's almost a hiss. "An understatement if ever I heard one, Minister. Auror Potter has always been lawless, but if he thinks he can get away with assaulting a senior Auror while on official duty just because he's the _Chosen One_ , he can think again."

And that's not fair, is it? Because Harry has _never_ asked for special treatment, never wanted the attention and expectations that came with his name and his scar. But Robards has always been small-minded and short-sighted when it came to Harry, and it looks as though that's not going to change any time soon. They're barely three minutes into the meeting, and Harry is already quivering in his chair, a large part of him wanting to rage and storm and smash and shout at the _injustice_ of it all, but he feels Derraid's cool gaze upon him, and he pushes the urge down.

Instead, he opens his mouth, ready to defend himself (yet again, and isn't it _exhausting_?), when Minerva interjects.

"As I have explained in detail to the Minister, Auror Potter was simply responding to Auror Cahalane's aggressive approach to the situation, and trying to contain what would have become a dangerous and volatile situation for all concerned. As you well know, _Gawain_ , Hogwarts is tremendously magically sensitive, and all the more so since the impact of the Battle. If Auror Potter hadn't intervened when he did, there was a very good chance that the castle would have responded defensively to the threat of attack. And why your Special Ops team hasn't had adequate training in respect of magical buildings, I do not know. It seems an astonishing oversight."

Derraid speaks for the first time, and though her voice is low and even, everyone around the table snaps to attention. 

"I believe, Minerva, that you had the Duelling Room constructed especially to provide a safe space for training the students in offensive spells and hexes? How fascinating. I should love to see it some time."

For the first time since the meeting began, Minerva smiles properly. 

"You would be welcome to visit anytime, my dear Ashling," she says, her voice warm. "I should certainly love to show you around. The use of the Duelling Room is precautionary more than anything—luckily, the castle seems to recognise the students' magic, and we haven't had any incidents with it responding to hexes in the halls, thank Merlin." She rolls her eyes, managing to encompass such a familiar wealth of mingled affection and exasperation that Harry laughs out loud, though he manages to turn it into an entirely convincing cough when Robards flicks a poisonous glare his way.

"My poor Hogwarts has been through a lot in recent years. It's had its loyalties tested, with so many of its former students turning on it, so much familiar magic attacking it. Hogwarts has a long memory, and I think after the trauma of the Battle it needed to grieve. It means no harm, but we had a rather unpleasant incident three years ago when a minor follower of Mr Riddle managed to get into the building and launched an attack on me as I exited my office. Hogwarts responded instantly—and some might say excessively. Auror Potter here will attest to the fact that it took us three days to convince the castle to release the man from the corridor that had blocked itself off from us, with him trapped in it. And after being restrained by the gargoyles for that whole time, I believe he needed an extended stay in St Mungo's before he went to Azkaban."

Harry can't help it, he shivers a bit. He was first on the scene again that day, but only because he had been dining there that lunchtime, and he and Nev had been summoned by the horrified shrieking of the portraits alerting them to an attack on the Headmistress. Minerva's account is admirably calm, but Harry remembers her white-faced and bleeding hard all over the flagstones, while the castle shuddered and groaned as its walls swung in on themselves, and that one last glimpse of the stone gargoyles descending, horrifying and inexorable, on the terrified man. 

Harry had worked alongside Minerva for those three days, conjuring his Patronus over and over to dance light-footed up and down the corridor, performing Tickling Charms and _Orchideous_ again and again, sending gentle _Aberto_ s at the impassive blankness of the new wall. And when those gentle spells didn't coax it around,he just sat quietly with his back to the stones, letting his body heat bleed into the sandstone, one hand stroking gently against the smooth grain. It hadn't occurred to him to just ask Hogwarts to admit him, but that had been the thing that worked, in the end. Just another gentle touch to the wall, an impassioned, self-conscious whisper into the mellow gold of the stones, and the wall had swung inwards to let him in. He'd never admitted to anyone how it had happened that time—how he had _spoken_ to Hogwarts and it had listened—but he wonders if Minerva knows, somehow.

To think of Cahalane wilfully attempting to destroy part of Hogwarts, after all it had been through—well, Harry couldn't have allowed that, could he?

And oddly, everyone around the table seems to agree with him as they listen to Minerva's words—well, everyone except Robards, but you can't win ‘em all, Harry thinks philosophically. Considering that he had been certain this meeting had been called for the express purpose of giving him an almighty bollocking, followed by his marching orders, things are really not proceeding as he had imagined they would.

"Well, Harry, it certainly sounds as though your actions yesterday prevented what could have been a greater catastrophe," Kingsley says thoughtfully. " _However_ "—and he lifts a finger towards Robards, cutting him off before he can begin to object—"it is _not_ acceptable to perform offensive spells on a superior officer, particularly not ones that entail forty minutes of unspelling to lift. And it strikes me that perhaps your… well, let's not use the word _flagrant_ but shall we say, _notable_ disregard for protocol and procedure may have had a hand in the situation escalating?"

Ron interjects here, and Harry casts him a look of studied betrayal while mentally composing a list of all the terrible payback he's going to wreak upon the Granger-Weasley household for this. Never more will he get up early and cook them a full English when he stays over with them! Not another minute of free babysitting shall they receive! And Ron can do one if he thinks he's ever getting another of Harry's homemade apple turnovers.

"Harry, it's like I was telling you in your last review. People expect you to be difficult, and you do nothing to mitigate their expectations. You're a self-fulfilling prophecy, mate. If Cahalane had looked on you as a trustworthy member of the team, you would have been able to talk him down. As it was, things went from zero to Body-Bind in no time."

And just like that, the cold feeling is back, and Harry has to swallow around the lump in his throat. Because that's what it's always been like, hasn't it? He doesn't feel like he belongs on the team, not really. He's not as careful as everyone else—the worst has already happened, in a way, after all, so it seems a bit silly to be too worried about watching his back and proceeding with caution. And he doesn't really feel like people particularly like working with him. They all seem to think he's a bit odd—too fast, too intense, too _Saviour-y_ maybe.

Kingsley spreads his hands, and his voice is gentle. "Harry, we have to move you out of active duty for the time-being. No, no—this isn't you being fired. But we have to take the concerns of our other Aurors seriously, and we think we can find a more suitable place for you than Serious Crimes. Ron, why don't you run through the plan for Harry?" 

Harry looks disbelievingly from Kingsley to Ron, who's surveying him with that same speculative look, and wonders how he's going to catch enough of a breath to tell them that they can't do it, they can't take him off Serious Crimes. Are they going to filter him into some PR-driven, public-facing role, like they tried before? Because that would be worse than being fired—all the grind of admin and dealing with people, without the freeing release of the chase, without the fierce rush of combat.

Ron leans forward.

"Harry. Mate. Listen to me. We're very concerned with what's happening at Hogwarts. It's been acting up for a while now, and if things there go tits up—apologies, Minerva— then we're well and truly stuck. But now we've got two attacks on students, and Nev and Hagrid've told you about the weird things that have been happening in the grounds, yeah? I think— _we_ think—we need someone on site, someone to investigate properly but without drawing attention to it. The last thing we need is to cause a widespread panic or have people pulling their kids out. We're thinking of sending you in undercover, mate. How would you feel about that?"

Harry looks at Ron across the table, hope stirring into a roar through him, and sees for one blinding moment those blue eyes grinning at him through a locked bedroom window, as the wrench and tug of a battered Ford Anglia tears the bars away.

"Ron, are you telling me I get to go…" and he catches himself—only just in time—just before he says the humiliating word "home", the word that would tell everyone in this room far too much about Harry's own pathetic heart.

"Are you telling me I get to go back to Hogwarts?"

* * *

It all seems so easy after that. Harry doesn't quite understand how something this _good_ could be happening, but it seems that he's going to be a proper undercover agent. The department is going to make a public statement about him going on extended leave after a workplace incident—just to appease Cahalane, and Harry can deal with that—and then Minerva is going to speak out in his support and conveniently offer him a post at Hogwarts. And it does seem a bit serendipitous that Proudfoot has genuinely been offered a position at the Duelling Academy in Budapest, and Minerva really is in need of a DADA professor. She's confident that she can get Harry up to speed on the curriculum before term starts again, and there's a room available for him right away in the teachers' wing, if he wants it. 

It seems like a dream, and Harry doesn't want to draw attention to himself by asking outright why Minerva thinks this is a good idea, or how she could possibly trust someone so war-ravaged and inexperienced to teach children, but she seems to understand what Harry isn't saying. She explains to everyone how intuitive Harry is when it comes to passing on knowledge, how gentle he is when he helps Neville out in the greenhouses, how patient he is with the starstruck First Years who clamour to talk to him when he stays for dinner at Hogwarts. Maybe it's not deliberate on her part, but it certainly injects a bit of steel into his spine about the teaching side of things.

"And don't forget, Auror Potter—or should I call you Professor Potter?—no one did more than you to help with the restoration of Hogwarts after the war." Harry remembers it, with a pain of nostalgia that's almost tangible—that long summer of 1998. Spending his eighteenth birthday rearranging shards of stained glass into their pattern by hand, because the pieces shivered in fear if a wand was so much as raised near them. Days and days of heavy lifting, clearing rubble and coaxing order from wreckage. The painstaking, exhausting task of cleansing the building of dark spell residue, murmuring healing and restoration spells even when his voice cracked and broke from dust and the horror of memories. Each day, another corridor. Each evening, a gentle hand to the wall, a pat, a word of encouragement to the castle that had withstood so much. Harry hadn't ever thought anyone had noticed that.

Minerva smiles at him. "Hogwarts remembers, Harry. Hogwarts keeps something from everyone who makes their home there, but I think you've given more of yourself to it than most. We would be most pleased to have you back."

And that seems to be that. Until Harry sees Ron and Kingsley exchange a quick glance, and then Derraid speaks up and says, "There is just one more thing, Mr Potter. You're not going alone."

She gestures with her wand, and a sparrowhawk Patronus speeds from the room.

Ron takes over again—and _when_ did he start being so… commanding? 

"Harry, these problems at Hogwarts recently—what you don't know is, we've been looking into them for a few months now."

He raises a hand at Harry's look of outrage.

"Don't give me that look, Harry. I decided to keep it quiet for a while. Minerva wanted you in on it from the start but, well…"—he looks a touch guilty at this point—"you know what you're like about Hogwarts, mate. I thought it was best to get someone a bit more neutral involved."

Derraid takes over, eyes alight.

"Mr Weasley quite rightly approached the Mysteries team when preliminary investigations turned up some strange results. Initially, our real interest lay in the fact that a number of Magical Creatures seemed to have been attacked by someone or something. However, none of them seemed to be improving or recovering from the attacks. Every creature seems to be cursed with some sort of profound lethargy and exhaustion. It's not pleasant. And it wasn't confined to one species, either—we examined a Thestral, some Kneazles, a few owls—we even spoke to Aragog who told us that some of his great grandchildren barely made it back to the nest one night, and they haven't left it since." (Harry can _feel_ the effort it's taking Ron not to shudder).

"We have had some of our team examine the victims, and it seems quite clear to us that they are suffering from some sort of blood curse. And now we believe that the students who were attacked have been infected with the same sort of thing. Why it's happening, or how it's connected to Hogwarts itself, we don't know. But we want to send in one of my team members, an expert in blood magic. He can look into the origins of the curse, and do some further tests on the blood samples from the victims, while you work on tracking down the attacker. My man is already undercover, so we can redirect him onto the Hogwarts project, and we believe he's the best person for the job of discovering the root and purpose of the curse."

And Harry realises with a sinking heart why he only vaguely recognises Derraid—because _of course_ she's sequestered down in the Department of Mysteries most of the time, and it begins to dawn on him that he's dealing with the Head of the Unspeakable Department.

And then her Patronus returns, heralding the sound of the office door opening, and of course it's Malfoy there; Malfoy with his wicked smile, and his robes billowing like smoke around his stupidly long legs, and the bloody stain of his Mark bared in confrontation from under the rolled up sleeves of his pristine white shirt. Malfoy who is _supposed_ to be in Hong Kong investigating some dragon blood smugglers, very far away from Harry and his unexpectedly lovely new job, and not here in Kingsley's office, complicating everything with the sharp intelligent gleam of his grey eyes, and the distracting smell of his warm skin, and telling Harry to budge over before sitting right next to him, almost in his bloody lap for fuck's sake .

"Started without me, I see." He smiles around the room, drops a flicker of a wink Harry's way, and then shoves his elbows onto the table and looks around expectantly.

"Now, why doesn't someone kindly tell me why I'm here?"

* * *


	2. A Second Wind

"Absolutely not," Harry says firmly, though Draco detects enough of a thin edge of panic to his voice to tell him that Harry knows it's hopeless to argue. 

"Absolutely yes," Draco replies, gleefully. "I'd be delighted to help, Head Auror Robards, Professor McGonagall. _Anything_ for my old _alma mater_."

Harry shoots him a look so poisonous that Draco positively beams with pride. He's still got it, he thinks. He sweetens his grin just a shade more, dabs at his lower lip with the barest touch of his tongue. It works. He watches as Harry's eyes drop to follow the stretch of his smile for a beat too long, and waits until McGonagall clears her throat pointedly. Harry jumps and flushes, and pulls his attention back to the Headmistress immediately, but the final look he casts Draco from under those blasted sooty lashes is laced with resentment. 

"Sorry, Professor. I just meant that, given the, erm, _tumultuous_ nature of my personal history with Malf… Draco, do you think it's wise for us to enter into a professional engagement? This case will require us to work closely together—perhaps if one or the other of us was to bow out…" He trails off, looking discomfited by the flat, unimpressed gaze of Minerva McGonagall.

Even Weasley is shaking his head across the table at Harry now, and Derraid looks roused for the first time. "Do you have some sort of problem with this assignment, Mr Potter? Because if so, now is the time to voice your concerns. I'm sure Mr Weasley could find another bright young Auror who would jump at the chance to take over this assignment."

Draco has to smother the gurgle of amusement that threatens to rise in him at the sight of Harry, flustered and irritated in equal measures, and not sure what to do about either of those emotions. It's one of Draco's favourite looks on him, though not even a _Crucio_ could prise that little nugget of information out into the open. To cover up that infernal bloody fondness a blushing Harry engenders in him, Draco laces a smirk with _just_ enough devilment to seem careless. Harry scowls in return (fetchingly, damn him).

"Not at all, Unspeakable Derraid," Harry manages, finally. "I'm delighted—honoured—to take on the assignment. I just meant…" And here he looks a bit shifty, and the sidelong glance at Draco is a touch abashed. "Well, isn't Unspeakable Malfoy needed on the Hong Kong job? I know the union of dragon reserve keepers on the Chinese mainland is very insistent on stamping out the blood smuggling ring."

And _touché_ , Professor Potter, Draco thinks grimly, as Derraid casts him a distinctly unimpressed look. Her voice is frosty when she replies.

"How fascinating, Auror Potter, that you should be so _au fait_ with the ins and outs of a deeply confidential, highly classified case involving an undercover agent who, as far as the average civilian is concerned"—and here she shoots a dirty look at Harry, before turning it on Draco—"is nothing more than a wealthy philanthropist who turns up in the _Witch Weekly_ gossip column on a frequent basis. And yet you don't seem in the least bit surprised by the fact that he's one of my top Unspeakables. As I say, fascinating."

What a sneaky little git, Draco thinks with grudging admiration. Trying to land Draco in it with his boss is a pretty masterful move, but Harry's going to have to try harder than that if he's going to get Draco off this case. Draco loves his job, and if impressing Derraid is the way to go to move up the ladder, then he's all in. And he must admit that there's something compelling (though admittedly a touch terrifying) about returning to Hogwarts with Harry after all this time, and with all the weight of their shared history behind them.

"Potter and I have mutual acquaintances, boss, so he knows a bit about my recent travel arrangements. As to the rest, I can only imagine that there aren't many secrets kept from the Chosen One around here. He could probably walk into any department in this building, flash that unsightly scar of his, and people would be spilling whatever secrets he wants to hear." Beside him, Harry splutters in indignation, and Draco slides a warning hand flat across the solid heat of Harry's thigh and _squeezes_. Which at least has the effect of shocking Harry into silence.

"Potter and I will do a great job on this—won't we, Potter?"

Harry, who has always been tenacious (and probably just as well for the wizarding world at large that he is, though his dogged resilience hadn't been quite as beneficial for the Dark Lord), tries one last time.

"I just don't think that it's a good idea to pair us up on this. No disrespect meant to Malfoy at all, I know how"—and he turns to look at Draco, eyes flicking coolly from Draco's mouth to the line of buttons starting at the base of his throat, back up to hold his gaze for a moment—" _competent_ he is. But we have a personal history that may prevent the smooth running of a joint partnership." 

McGonagall coughs delicately, and murmurs something vaguely insulting-sounding about schoolboy rivalries, but Draco has bigger fish to fry. He's won the hand, he can feel it—he just has to collect.

He stretches in his chair, languid as a cat, and smug with it. He can't believe Harry is giving this to him so easily.

"Why, Potter, are you afraid you won't be able to keep your hands off me? Worried about skirmishes in the corridors? We're not schoolchildren any more. I, for one, have learned some decorum since then." He glances at McGonagall, and his expression shifts into something complicated; it's not quite contrition, because the Malfoy bone structure isn't really built for that, but there's a clarity to his gaze and a sincerity in the curl of of his mouth that—he hopes—speak to the man he has become, rather than the snivelling bigot he was as a child.

"Don't worry, Professor—I know that Potter isn't renowned for his self-control, but please be assured that I shall insist on holding us both to the most rigorous standards during this assignment. Our behaviour shall at all times be most befitting of the combined gravitas of the staff of Hogwarts, the DMLE, and the Department of Mysteries."

"Quite, Unspeakable Malfoy." McGonagall's voice is drier than a tumbler of Tomatin 21, and Draco has to refrain from shifting uneasily in his seat at her tone. She's not his Professor anymore, he reminds himself—although, if this assignment goes as it seems to be, she _will_ be, for all intents and purposes, his boss. Which might even be worse. Still, at least he can come up with a few tricks to get the new DADA professor on his side, he thinks, sliding Harry his sunniest smile, and allowing his leg to nudge against the warm, familiar heat of Harry's thigh under the cover of the meeting table. He has to stifle a laugh when Harry elbows him, hard. _This might actually be fun_ , he thinks. Another cough from Minerva pulls him back to the room, and he realises with a start that the room's other five occupants are staring at _him_ this time. 

Minerva and Robards are making a pretty good fist of mingling disapproval with impatience, Derraid merely looks resigned, and Kingsley is impassive as always when he enquires wryly, "Are you back with us, Unspeakable Malfoy?"

Draco flushes, and is irritated to observe a small but distinctly self-satisfied smile threatening to disrupt Harry's _Saviour of the Wizarding World, star Auror, oh and did I mention I'm going to be Head of Defence Magic at Hogwarts, so you can just call me Professor_ face. It's a very fucking annoying face, Draco reflects, but stupid Harry—with his stupid tempting lower lip and his stupid lickable jawline—makes it work. He sighs, long accustomed to liking Harry's face far more than he'd care to, then leans forward and puts his elbows on the table. It's time to get to work.

"Right, I'm going to need all the details of each attack—dates, approximate times, condition the victims were found in, Pensieve memories from everyone who discovered the victims—and I mean _all_ the victims. We're going in hard on this—Hogwarts is more than a school for a lot of us, it's a home. Those children deserve to feel safe there."

McGonagall begins to run through the various unusual events that someone—anyone!—should have called Draco in to investigate weeks ago, for Merlin's sake. She's still brisk, but there's a new softness to her eyes, and she grants Draco a rare smile, the unfamiliar light of it casting her face anew. Harry casts him a look of fond exasperation, but he can't quite keep his smile in either. He's so bloody soft sometimes, Draco thinks with that same helpless affection Harry manages to raise in him, much against his will.

Under the table, Harry's knee knocks against Draco's, then settles there, the nudge of it a persistent reminder of Harry's presence. Like he could forget, Draco thinks ruefully, before pulling his quill out and applying himself to the matter at hand.

* * *

As the two most junior attendees at the meeting, Harry and Draco are swiftly ejected so that Weasley can continue his obsessive planning of the undercover op, and Derraid and McGonagall can helpfully talk him down from his wilder flights of fancy (when they leave, he's standing at the head of the table, gesticulating wildly, and animatedly discussing the prospect of getting Harry to pose for a celebrity calendar in order to divert attention away from his career change). Draco's not entirely sure, but he thinks Weasley is muttering something that sounds terrifyingly like "Nothing but a quill to cover his…" before Harry starts looking distinctly horrified and Draco practically has to manhandle him out the door. He sees Harry cast one tragic, beseeching glance McGonagall's way, and as the door shuts behind them, they hear McGonagall interject with a ferocious "Mr Weasley! If you think one of _my_ professors is going to be plastered all over _Witch Weekly_ in the altogether…"

They look at each other helplessly, and then Harry shrugs and starts walking, and Draco falls in alongside him, because like it or not, they're colleagues now, and had better start looking as though they get on.

To start the process off on the right track, he nudges Harry gently with his shoulder, and using his friendliest voice, tells him, "You're an absolute prick, Potter."

Harry's sideways glance is amused, and he bumps his arm companionably off Draco's when he replies, "No, you're the prick. You prick."

"Potter, you tried to get me taken off the case in there. That was low, even for you. I want to be in on this one—why in Merlin's name would you try to sabotage me?"

Stupid Harry looks shamefaced at that, and then (proving that he truly is the prick in this scenario) he starts _apologising_.

"I panicked, okay? I'm sorry, but you know as well as I do that this is a terrible idea. But you're right—I shouldn't have tried to land you in it with Derraid. Christ, she's terrifying though."

"Yes, well, next time try to remember that when something's confidential it means that even _you're_ not supposed to know about it. And why is it such a terrible idea, anyway? I'm rather looking forward to it."

They've reached Harry's office now, and Harry touches his wand to the door to take down the wards. When his door swings open, Draco can see that it's empty. Harry flicks a delicate _Lumos_ from his fingertips, the caress of his magic rippling like cool water over Draco's skin. 

Instead of answering him, Harry halts in his doorway, braced against the door jamb. His hands are in his pockets, and his voice is gentle, but there's a flicker of something desperate in his eyes when he meets Draco's gaze.

"It's been four months," he says.

"Not quite. And anyway, I owled, didn't I?"

"One letter, Malfoy? One line to say that your trip was proving quite the eyeopener—and thanks for that highly specific and illuminating morsel of information, by the way. And then a whole foot of parchment telling me exactly what you were going to do to me when you got back, and don't think we won't be talking about _that_ in a minute. And then you signed off saying, ‘Home soon, I hope'. Which I took to mean you were missing me and that you'd actually be coming back soon—sorry if I didn't crack your code that would let me know what you actually meant was you would be gone for another three months and, oh yes, I wouldn't be hearing from you anymore."

And that stings like a hex, because Draco _had_ wanted to owl. In fact, he's been long resigned to wanting to owl bloody Harry all the time—wants to send him little messages in the evening to say goodnight, and in the morning to ask him how he slept, and _yes_ , actually, he wants to say, _I miss you, I'm thinking of you, I'm coming home soon to you_. The whole thing is appalling, and impossible, and Draco is not getting into it now.

Instead, he lets his voice grow cold.

"Of course, Potter, you're absolutely correct. Why didn't I just ask the leader of the extremely fucking dangerous gang of smugglers I was infiltrating if I could borrow his owl to send a letter to Senior Auror Potter of the Serious Crimes Division, oh and did I mention he's also the Saviour of the Wizarding World? Yes, that would have gone down beautifully, and really helped me with my cover story, I'm sure."

And then, because it's Harry, and he's utterly infuriating and unpredictable, and always seems helplessly charmed by Draco and his fits of pique, Harry throws back his head and laughs. It's a beautiful thing to get to see it up close. Draco could never have imagined the joyous spread of that smile directed at him, not back in the days of nose-breaking, and Harry slicing him up like it meant nothing at all, and the roaring thunder of the Fiendfyre. 

Draco can't resist any of it—the deepening creases at the corners of Harry's eyes (relics of countless smiles past, smiles Harry deserved but probably never imagined he'd get to give), the tautening stretch of Harry's throat, his clear, uncomplicated peal of laughter. It's endlessly compelling, that laugh, and Draco moves before the sound of it can die away and takes Harry's mouth under his as though to swallow the delight of it down, make it part of him, keep that part of Harry safe. 

Harry kisses him back like he's helpless to do anything else, his mouth a welcoming heat, the end of his laughter deepening into a gasp of need. His hands flit blindly over Draco's body, greedy and grasping, searching for a sliver of skin. And it's always like this between them—the swift inexorable descent into heat, this excess of desire—and the irresistible rush of it is made worse by Harry's teeth tugging viciously at Draco's lower lip, and the covetous slide of his tongue, and the unbearably seductive heat of their shared breaths, and Harry's half-muttered groan of "Four months, Draco—too long…"

And _this_ is why they shouldn't be working together—because they're both hard, already, just from this frantic kiss. Because Draco has Harry pressed against the doorframe of his shared office in the middle of the day, and he doesn't even _care_ if Kingsley himself walks past. Because he feels mindless with the need to just _take_ Harry, right there in the corridor; to press him up against the sickly sherbet-green Ministry wall and spell away every stitch of Auror uniform that's coming between Draco and the enticing, lickable heat of Harry's skin.

It's only the last shred of self-preservation that has Draco wrenching his mouth away from Harry's, though the growl of frustration that Harry makes at the loss of the kiss has Draco pressing his hips forward relentlessly, chasing the press and roll of Harry's rutting thrusts, even as Draco murmurs, "Not here, oh fuck, not here."

Harry's arm slides solid and strong across the small of Draco's back, and as he pulls Draco in and recaptures his mouth, he whirls them into the office and kicks the door shut behind them. The kiss is wet and filthy, dizzyingly good and utterly distracting, but they both manage to fling out simultaneous wandless Locking Charms that have the door rattling in its frame.

And then Harry's mouth is at Draco's ear, his voice gravelly with desire but so, so fond, and he's half-gasping as he shoves Draco's shirt up to flick at the hard peak of Draco's nipple.

"This is why we can't work together, Malfoy. I can't keep myself together around you. You drive me—fuck! yes—crazy." Draco's head falls back against the wall, and he allows himself to just _feel_ the tantalising lap of Harry's tongue as it follows the line of his throat, and then he arches, swift and sudden, into the possessive suckle of Harry's mouth as it joins that maddening caressing thumb at his nipple, and then it's all a frenzy of tongue and touch. 

Draco has to use one hand to unlace the breeches of Harry's uniform, because Harry has the other above his head, pinned to the wall behind him, but he's had enough practice at that over the past two and a half years. Even though he manages to slide the gold toggles of Harry's surcoat free, he gives up on the tiny trail of mother-of-pearl buttons that run down the front of Harry's shirt, and he just wrenches at them, sending the opalescent discs clacking and scattering all over the floor. Harry's going to have a word with him about that later, he thinks, though at the moment Harry is dark-eyed and panting with lust, so he probably isn't thinking too much about the state of his uniform just yet.

And it's so _good_ then, after all this time away, to feel the whisper and slide of Harry's skin against Draco's own, to run a voracious tongue along the shuddering bracket of Harry's ribcage, to drop down and press an open mouth over the spreading wet pulse of precome that wells up when Harry sees Draco on his knees. Harry's hand is tangled in Draco's hair, the heedless clutch of it just on the right side of painful, and his groan breaks into a shudder when Draco's relentless sucking mouth meets the upstroking fist that he's wrapped around Harry's cock. Draco feels anchored, moored by the tender clench of Harry's fingers against his scalp. It's been too long.

Harry certainly seems to think so, because his hips start to move erratically, and he pulls Draco to standing (by his hair, and fuck if Draco can bring himsef to be anything other than brutally turned on by the desperation of it), and with a muttered charm he gets Draco's trousers open and down around his thighs, and it's all just so fucking good. Harry's hand on his cock is hot and eager, with the barest burn of dry friction that sends Draco's eyes fluttering shut. 

"Please, Draco—I need…" Another twist of Harry's wrist, the press of Harry's fingertips into the tender skin of Draco's wrist as he slides their other hands together. Draco plucks at Harry's swollen lower lip, guides Harry's tongue across the pads of his fingers and down to lick the curling clasp of Draco's palm, because Harry prefers it wet and messy, and then they're wanking each other hard, foreheads knocking together and mouths meeting and parting on every shaky in-breath, and it's hardly any time at all before Harry's hips slam forward into the covetous circle of Draco's hand, and he comes groaning Draco's name (which is unfairly hot, and sends Draco hurtling after him, his orgasm wrenched from him so hard that he can only close his eyes and let it take him over).

And this, Draco thinks, as they press together sweat-slick and panting and sticky with drying come, is why they can't work together.

* * *

They share one last hard kiss, before Draco trots off to do Unspeakable things somewhere mysterious for the afternoon, and Harry packs things up in his office. He's not waiting long before the confidential memo arrives from Ron, and Harry suspects Ron must have been planning this undercover job for a while now, so quick and thorough are his instructions. It's difficult, finding Vikander and saying goodbye to her, and trying to show her how much he appreciated her treating him like any other idiot she has to work with, and how much he respects her. As usual, Harry isn't sure he's made a good fist of it, but Vikander thumps him fondly on the arm before he leaves, and tells him she's sure it's all a misunderstanding, and that he'll be back in no time, so he must have got _something_ right.

As he stalks through the Atrium, resolutely ignoring all the stares, and clutching a small box of personal items, Harry realises that the primary emotion he's feeling is relief. He _feels_ lighter, more in control of himself. So much so that he doesn't even panic when he sees a seething crowd in the press pen by the welcome desk and realises that Ron must have already released the statement.

When the first camera shutter starts to click, and he hears a cacophony of voices begin to call, "Auror Potter! Over here! Do you have a quote for us?" he manages, quite nobly he thinks, to restrain himself from hexing the bollocks off the more invasive press photographers, and even musters up a fairly neutral tone and expression for his illuminating "No comment." He Floos out of the atrium without a backward glance—this isn't his problem anymore, he realises delightedly. Let Ron deal with it.

And it turns out that Harry and Draco both have the whole rest of the week off, because according to the _Prophet_ , Harry is officially on leave pending a disciplinary action. Meanwhile, Draco is still tense and exhausted from months travelling around mainland China with a band of ruthless dragon killers, and according to him Derraid had taken one look at him when he arrived at the Department of Mysteries to write up his report and told him to _piss off and get some sleep_.

Harry knows all this because Draco turns up at Grimmauld that evening, with his ridiculous monogrammed leather holdall, and the spreading purple stain of exhaustion under his eyes from Portkey-lag, and his wand in the new thigh holster Harry had given him before he left for China. Draco always gets paranoid when he's on a mission, and he told Harry once that the best way to beat the paranoia was to be sure you had your wand within grabbing distance at all times. 

Harry had wondered if he'd show up—had even made an extra large portion of boeuf bourguignon just in case, though not just because it's Draco's favourite; Harry loves it too—but he doesn't always expect Draco, because they're not really _boyfriends_ , or partners, or a couple at all, really. They've just had this _thing_ for a while, and though it's been more than two years now, they're never sure when they'll see each other, or how long for. But here he is, unannounced but very welcome, and Harry tries to show him how glad he is to see him by sucking him off in the hallway of Grimmauld, with Draco's fingers tight in his hair, and his own clutched greedily around the maddeningly taut leather of that ridiculously attractive thigh holster.

If Harry is honest with himself, he'd been hoping Draco would turn up, like he sometimes does after a mission; sometimes he's jubilant; sometimes he's shaking from shock or the aftereffects of too many vicious curses; once, he had turned up with a knife wound running brutal and livid across the notches of his ribcage, and Harry didn't realise it was there until he was already inside Draco, and only then because he saw the rosy blossom of fresh blood spreading across the shirt that Draco hadn't even taken off before he had pushed Harry down and climbed on top of him.

It turns out to be a brilliant few days. It's rare that they get to be together like this, without early starts or looming assignments or the constant unspoken knowledge that their time alone is short and easily disrupted. And though Harry never expects too much (and definitely doesn't ever want to _ask_ for too much from Draco, who as far as Harry knows has never had a long term relationship, and it's not through lack of choice—just _look_ at him, for fuck's sake), having Draco around just seems to make things seem easier, and more fun, and infinitely more interesting.

And it's really… _nice_ , having Draco there, especially this week. Because if Harry was on his own, he'd probably read every word in the _Prophet_ , and work himself up into a lather of rage over the barely-concealed slurs about Harry's mental state, or Cahalane's sanctimonious quotes about harmony in the workplace. But it's somehow hard to care about all that when Draco is eating buttered toast messily across from him at the breakfast table, wearing only his pants, and licking marmalade off the heel of his hand, and being rude about the paparazzi shots of Harry leaving the Ministry. "Very nice, Potter, _very_ brooding. Oh, and is that a wilted potted plant poking out the top of the sad little box of memories you're clutching? Good touch, _very_ pathetic, no one would suspect for a moment that you're actually going on an elite undercover mission with one of the Ministry's finest Unspeaka… oof, get off, you brute!" Because of course it's always hard to shut Draco up, but Harry has some tried-and-tested techniques, and tackling him to the floor and sucking his cock so slowly that he nearly weeps with frustration is a pretty effective one. 

It's not that Harry really cares about what people are saying about him, but it's hard to keep ignoring it when wild speculations are plastered all over the front page of the newspaper. Having Draco around makes it easier, somehow. He sometimes reads the articles aloud, doing all the voices (his Ron is particularly good), and when the insinuations get too wild and offensive, Draco just chucks the paper towards the fireplace and fires a lazy _Incendio_ at it, before dragging Harry back to bed, or out for a good cathartic fly.

And once Minerva releases her statement welcoming Harry onto the staff at Hogwarts, it's just as well Draco has stuck around, because the press attention gets so oppressive that it would be mad to venture out at all. Only, instead of sitting around in his pants, brooding, Harry gets to spend the best part of three days in bed with Draco, fucking and being fucked more times than he can remember, and bathing together to wash away the grime of sweat and come and spit, and dropping curry on the bedsheets when Draco pulls him down into yet another filthy kiss that ends with Draco's tongue teasing at his rim and Harry pulsing into a dry orgasm that he hadn't imagined he'd even be able for, so well-used is he.

All in all, it's a refreshing few days, and Harry is feeling distinctly cheerful by the time he kisses Draco goodbye. Draco's leaving to spend a bit of time with his mum before he heads to Hogwarts. Harry knows it's best for Draco to head to Wiltshire for a while, because, like Harry, he can't exactly run the gauntlet of the press around Diagon himself. Draco may be an Unspeakable, but that's not common knowledge, and readers of _Witch Weekly_ are intrigued and excited to hear that one of their favourite cover stars—philanthropist and wild party-goer, reformed bad boy Draco Malfoy, the heir with a heart of gold and cheekbones to cry over—is going to be joining the Hogwarts staff too.

And so it is that, on the 15th of August, Harry Potter takes his trunk, and his best robes, and his newly-discovered sense of purpose, and Floos from Grimmauld Place into the fireplace in the Head Teacher's office at Hogwarts, where Minerva McGonagall is waiting for him with a smile.

* * *

Harry had never known Hogwarts like this, basking like a cat in the heavy, syrupy heat of late summer days. He had only spent one summer here before, and it was in the dreadful months after the Battle, when he and Hogwarts were both hollowed out and war-damaged. It had buzzed with activity then—tents sprawling across the lawns, Hagrid and his Thestral teams pulling the wagons filled with rubble, countless students and ex-students putting in the heavy work to get the place cleared and cleansed. It hadn't been a happy time, exactly, when every day brought fresh reminders of all they had lost, but there was something purposeful about it. 

And though Harry had never said it, because Hermione would have looked at him with that horrifying pity in her eyes, and Ron would have done something awful like try to hug him, Harry had felt there was an element of penance in it for him—something to scour the guilt, something to wipe his memory clean of all the terrible things he'd seen (the things he'd _caused_ , his brain taunted him). It was a way of scrubbing out the sight of Remus and Tonks lying side-by-side and so very clearly _gone_ (there was nothing of the serene release of death in their faces, and Harry still saw them in his nightmares); something to clear the vision of Sirius falling, falling, falling through that Veil, his wild grin hardly faltering even at the moment of leaving; something to salve the wound of having failed to save so many; something to tire his body out so badly that he even, sometimes, managed to get some sleep.

But that was then, and this is now, and Hogwarts is quiet, and healed, and Harry feels the same, for maybe the first time that he can remember.

There are so few of them here—a skeleton staff, Minerva, and a handful of students—that they all sit at the same table for meals, and everyone pitches in for the days' activities, and every day Harry wakes feeling hopeful and excited about the hours ahead. It's a novelty, he has to admit, and before he knows it the first week has flown past.

Harry wakes in his room in the staff wing with a glow of satisfaction. He never draws the curtains, just lets the sun wake him every morning. From his warm spot in the bed he can see the stretch of lawn that leads to the Thestral paddock, with the spread of the Great Lake an impossible blue in the distance.

He rolls out of bed, and after an efficient shower (with absolutely no wanking while thinking of the last time he had sucked Draco off in the shower at Grimmauld, and the way his skin had flushed pink from the heat of the water and Harry's bruising grip on his hips, and the almost gentle murmur of his voice repeating Harry's name over the hiss of the spray), he heads down to Hagrid's hut for the early morning rounds.

Hagrid is already up and out, Fang ambling at his heels. The smile of delight he always gives at seeing Harry is undimmed by time, and Harry feels the wet, insistent prod of Fang's nose at the slice of skin between his sleeve and wrist. He gives Fang a scratch behind the ears, and falls into step alongside Hagrid, both of them making for the paddock and the newly-built stables that house the baby Thestrals. There's a sense of something precious in the air, this early in the morning, surrounded by the fug of warm animal skin and fresh straw and the low humming breath of contented creatures. 

They feed the Thestrals, paying special attention to the brand new babies and the two pregnant creatures, before moving to the end of the stable and the smaller individual stalls. Two of Hagrid's regular helpers, a tender-hearted Ravenclaw who's about to go into Fifth Year, and a small, tired-looking boy who Harry only recognises vaguely, pass them on the way. 

"‘Ow's Leticia this mornin', Kit?" Hagrid asks the boy, who starts at being addressed and then blushes furiously when he meets Harry's eyes. 

"Oh, hello Hagrid. Hello Harry Potter… I mean, Professor. Sorry, sorry… " He trails off, looking discomfited. 

Hagrid laughs and claps him on the shoulder, nearly sending him flying into a stack of bales. "Just ‘Arry will be fine until term starts, won't it, ‘Arry? Kit ‘ere is a new student, not even bin Sorted yet because ‘e's not starting until September." He smiles kindly at the boy, then whispers loudly to Harry, "‘Ad a bit o' trouble at ‘ome, so Minerva told ‘im to come along for summer. That woman is a gem."

Kit looks even more uncomfortable, so Harry gives him a grin and gestures back at the stalls. 

"So they've got you working hard, then? How is Leticia doing this morning?"

Kit still seems overwhelmed that Harry Potter is actually talking to him, but at least he's stopped blushing and stammering, and he seems to know his stuff when it comes to the care of Magical Creatures. They reach Leticia's cage and Kit drops to his knees beside the poorly Thestral.

"She's the same, really—no appetite, still too weak to walk. But her wound seems to have healed quite nicely, at least." He looks queasy as he says it, and runs his hand gently over the faint, silvered scar between her folded wings. She shudders a little at the motion, the muscular ripple of it subsiding as she presses her head gently into Kit's touch. He pets her with a tenderness unusual for someone so young, and Harry wonders who Kit had lost that meant he could see Leticia in the first place. Hagrid looks worried—he told Harry that none of his usual potions or spells are making any difference. It's been over a month since he found Leticia lying at the edge of the forest, weak and disoriented with that inch-long gouge at her wing roots, and though she's not getting any worse, she's not getting any better either.

Harry sighs, and gives her a good scratch behind her ears, before he grabs a pitchfork and heads for the stack of bales. At least here, when he feels helpless, there's always something useful that he can do. 

And really, Harry reflects as he drags his aching muscles back to the staff wing an hour later, he needn't have bothered with the shower earlier, because he's definitely in need of another. An hour of mucking out and straw-spreading means that he's distinctly whiffy, and his shoulders are burning from the unfamiliar rhythmic shove and roll of the pitchfork. It doesn't seem like the ideal time to round a corner and find an immaculately arrayed Draco Malfoy lounging elegantly against the wall, but even the knowledge of his own grime can't stop Harry striding forward for a bruising hug and burying his face in the fragrant, soapy warmth of Draco's skin. And isn't it a really lovely and unfamiliar thing, to see Draco smiling at him in the corridors of Hogwarts in a way he could never have imagined ten years before.

* * *

Draco goes rigid at the slide and press of Harry's body against his—here, in the honey-gold light of a Hogwarts he thought he had left behind forever—and when he speaks, his voice is faint and shocked.

"Potter, what… What is that _smell_? And is that _straw_ in your hair? Unhand me immediately, you foul beast!"

Harry, the unmitigated bastard, merely laughs in delight and nuzzles deeper into the curve of Draco's neck, and the solid heat of him is so gorgeously familiar that Draco's heart gives an inconvenient clench of something close to tenderness. Harry is a hot weight against him, glistening faintly with sweat and rosy from exertion. Even the salty tang of him is mouthwateringly good, and Draco drops his mouth to the corner of Harry's and places a kiss there, light and fleeting and probably a bit too telling.

Harry moves that quarter of an inch to the left and meets the brush of Draco's mouth with a greedy, claiming nip at his lower lip, and Draco is only human after all, and who could resist the dirty, intense slide of Harry Potter's mouth? Who would even want to try?

There's a small window alcove further along the corridor, with a faded tapestry to protect from draughts. Harry begins to manhandle Draco back towards it, and it's really quite a feat that he should be so nimble on his feet while managing to untuck Draco's shirt and get a possessive grip on the hollow of Draco's hipbone. And Draco can't help laughing, because he's always been ticklish, and anyway Harry has got them tangled in the heavy drape of the tapestry, though he's still gasping into Draco's mouth with every fierce press of his mouth.

All in all, it's not the most dignified position to be in when Minerva McGonagall enters the corridor and stands by primly as they disentangle themselves from the tapestry and each other.

"Gentlemen," she acknowledges, when they've eventually straightened themselves out. She fixes her flinty gaze on Draco. "I came to see that you were settling in, Professor Malfoy, and that you had found your quarters to your satisfaction, but I see Professor Potter has already made you quite welcome. I must say that when you said you had a turbulent personal relationship, I hadn't imagined that it extended to inappropriate grappling in the halls of your workplace."

In the years since he left school, Draco has faced down smugglers, Dark wizards, vampires, and Lucius Malfoy without a whimper, but he finds that he still quails in the face of Minerva McGonagall's disapproval. Beside him, Harry seems to be finding the stone flagstones at his feet very interesting, judging by how intently he's staring at them.

There's nothing for it, really, Draco realises. Harry's incoherent at the best of times, even when he hasn't just been caught _in flagrante_ with his childhood nemesis by his surrogate mother, ex-Headmistress, and current boss. Draco's going to have to save this situation.

"Good morning, Headmistress. Yes, my suite is quite satisfactory, thank you for your kind concern. The elves have made the place very comfortable. As to my activities with Professor Potter, we were just on our way to your office to inform you of the"—he coughs, delicately, but there's nothing for it but to plough on—" _intimate_ nature of our personal relationship. In recent years, we have discovered some common interests"—beside him, Harry snorts—"and have enjoyed a more amicable acquaintance than we had as schoolchildren."

Minerva raises an eyebrow, then both eyes to heaven, and the expression on her face could probably best be described as long-suffering. Beside her, Harry is staring at Draco in disbelief, before mouthing something at him. Draco isn't very proficient at lipreading, but judging by Harry's expression, it's probably something along the lines of "What the everloving fuck?"

Draco shrugs his shoulders, because she was _right there_ while Draco had his hands tangled in Harry's hair and his tongue in Harry's mouth, so what is he supposed to say?

Minerva sniffs.

"Well, gentlemen, as I would have told you in this illuminating conversation that you were undoubtedly on your way to my office to instigate, there is no rule against staff enjoying… personal relations. We do, in fact, offer the opportunity for partners to cohabit—and as your quarters are next door to each other, it would be no great matter for the elves to ask Hogwarts to rearrange itself so that you have a connecting door between your rooms. It would be more convenient, and it would certainly discourage any nocturnal wanderings."

Harry looks as flabbergasted as Draco feels, and when they catch each other's eyes, Draco is surprised to see a flare of heat, and a wild sort of hopefulness, in Harry's gaze. And it's not that Draco hasn't _thought_ about it before—making something a bit more official with Harry, maybe even leaving a few things at Grimmauld so he doesn't have to keep lugging his holdall with him every time. But it's always seemed like a step too far—too permanent, too (and Draco would never admit this to a soul) frightening. Because keeping things casual means that Draco can legitimately pretend that he doesn't care a jot when Harry (as he inevitably will at some point sooner or later) decides to walk away from this heated, all-encompassing _thing_ they share and find someone less abrasive, less dangerous, less obsessive than a rootless former Death Eater with blood on his hands and a long-standing, unfortunate love for Harry Potter lodged painfully somewhere behind his breastbone.

Draco is almost certain that sharing a living space with Harry isn't going to help him to get over all these inconvenient feelings that his stupid heart insists on harbouring, but he doesn't exactly have a good track record for making sensible decisions. Before he knows it, he finds himself nodding along gravely with the Headmistress and agreeing that, yes, it would indeed be very pleasant to have a view of the lake. By the time she leaves, assuring them that she'll send one of the elves up presently to rearrange the rooms, it feels oddly like he's a guest in a distinctly subpar hotel. 

Harry groans in dismay, but there's a definite glint of amusement in those grass-green eyes when he peers at Draco from behind his fingers.

"That was a truly traumatic experience. I would room with Voldemort himself if it meant that I didn't have to worry about encountering Minerva on a patrol in the corridor while I'm trying to sneak into your room," he mutters fervently, then yelps as Draco pokes him hard in the ribs. 

"Come on then, Potter. Show me to my new chambers. Unless you want to keep insulting me, in which case I'll be sleeping in my own room, with the door bolted, and I will _not_ be letting you in, and _will_ happily leave you entirely at the mercy of McGonagall and her unerring instinct for when someone's out of bed when they shouldn't be."

Harry rolls his eyes, the cheeky fucker, and drags Draco along by the wrist, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, "Well, at least Voldemort would have been less of a pain in the arse…"

Draco feels like showing Harry any of the numerous ways in which he can be a massive pain in the arse, but the intention is driven out of his mind when he follows Harry into what he immediately determines is going to be his new bedroom, previous occupant be damned.

"Potter, you jammy fucker, how did you land this room? It's much better than mine; you've got that gorgeous big window and a proper view of the lake! How is it that I'm only next door, but _my_ poky little window looks out over the Thestral paddock? I wasn't especially looking forward to being woken by the sight and sound of them tearing into gobbets of raw meat at six in the morning."

He pushes the casement up, leans out so that the heat of the mid-morning sun kisses his face. Behind him, he feels that shift in the air, that vibration in the molecules of his magic, that indicates that Harry is nearby, before a warm, strong (if slightly grimy) forearm wraps around his waist. Draco takes just a moment to enjoy it, to lean into it, before he's worried it'll start to be too much, and he slips past Harry and back into the room.

"And look at the size of this wardrobe!" His voice is probably muffled, so far is he into the recesses of the carved mahogany behemoth, so he thinks it's safe to mutter darkly to the empty hangers, "That woman has always had it in for me. It's why she landed me with the box room, and you get the luxury suite."

He turns back into the room, to find Harry standing still, just watching him, and that same bubble of hope that he saw in Harry earlier rises up in his own chest until he's nearly sick with it. And then the moment goes on too long, so he decides to just _say it_ , because someone has to. He chokes down all those feelings of his and just comes out with it, quickly, so he can get it over with.

"So, are we doing this sharing thing, then? Because if we are, I want this to be our bedroom."

Harry is so still and silent for a moment, that Draco begins to move towards the door, cursing himself all the while for that blindingly stupid lack of self-preservation. Why did he think Harry could want him, here at Hogwarts, where every turn of the corridor is a fresh reminder of the old Draco's rank stupidity, his hubris, his petty-minded sneering, his casual cruelty. 

And he starts to say something, anything, he doesn't quite know what, but then Harry is moving—swift, and predatory, and fierce with what Draco thinks might be joy—and tackling him backwards onto what Draco is very glad to assume is now their bed.

* * *

They lie in bed for hours, missing breakfast, and then lunch, having what Harry remembers afterwards as the best sex of his life. Later, with Draco under him, gloriously unclothed and luscious with it, Harry almost doesn't know what to do with his hands—they flit from a smooth caress down the shorn nape of Draco's neck, to a shivering path back and forth from thigh to knee, and up again in a gentle press of fingers to Draco's lips. Harry feels drunk with it, lazy and untethered from the world. 

He's never had this luxury with Draco, really, because he's never really sure when Draco will be gone again. They've never had the capacity for this leisurely exploration, and the languid unfolding of desire into something more frenzied. Harry's never wanted to chance it before, lest he scare Draco off. 

Draco had told him once (years ago, after they started getting drunk together regularly, but before they started fucking every chance they got) that he didn't ever want to feel bound to anything in his life. It's why he didn't buy a house of his own, but rented shitty little Muggle flats with peeling wallpaper and toasters that broke the second anyone so much as waved a wand near them; it's why he took on all the jobs abroad, so he barely needed to sleep in those shitty Muggle flats anyway; it's, presumably, why he spends what few evenings off he gets doing things like fucking Harry over a bannister in Grimmauld until he comes in a rush all over the stair runner, and then uses the last of Harry's good sourdough for toast before Flooing out again on the next mission before dawn has even risen. 

Harry's always wondered why Draco keeps coming back—why he hasn't found some rapier-sharp society witch or wizard to settle down with. Harry can only presume it's because Draco's like him, in his own way—he's _different_ , somehow, to other people, people who grew up with parents who weren't murdered by an evil Overlord, or weren't vindictive henchmen to said evil Overlord, and didn't invite werewolves to come and _live in their home_ with their sixteen-year-old son, for instance. 

Harry gets why Draco wouldn't want to put down roots, when the soil he grew from is salted and poisonous. It's just, well, it's a bit lonely sometimes, kissing Draco goodbye yet again, after yet another too-short visit. And Draco always _seems_ happy, when he's with Harry. He laughs a lot—that beguiling, bright sound which so few people get to hear these days. He's less guarded when they're alone, less cool and distant. Harry supposes they've already seen the absolute worst of each other, over years of taunts and fights and crushed bones and the careless slice of magic through skin and vein and tendon. They've seen the worst of each other, and yet they're still able to understand the very best of each other too, the way no one else seems to. And isn't that a funny one?

He clears his throat before he can think too much more, and then whispers into the sweat-laced satin of Draco's hair.

"So, shall we share this bedroom then? Or would you like to keep your own separately? We could just put in an adjoining door, like Minerva suggested."

"Oh no, Potter, you sly dog. You don't get to keep this gorgeous room all to yourself. I'm having this one. I suppose you can share it, if you like. And anyway, it would make more sense for us to keep the room next door as a workspace. This isn't a jolly, where we can lounge around in bed all day. We have classes to teach, remember. These NEWTs students are depending on you, Potter—Merlin help them. You can't just waltz in there with your bloody back-from-the-dead, defeated-the-Dark-Lord attitude and just teach them _Expelliarmus_ for a year, you know. _And_ we have an investigation to run, though we'll need to keep all our material for that under a Notice-Me-Not. We can't trust anyone here, Potter, not even the house-elves."

Harry rolls his eyes, and refrains from reminding Draco that he didn't do too badly at teaching Defence Magic to his very own student militia for an entire year, and he _definitely_ doesn't mention that Draco would probably still be struggling with producing his Patronus if Harry hadn't worked with him on it for six months in Eighth Year. 

It's too late, though—Draco is already halfway out of the bed, with the mission on his mind. Harry spares the lean, come-silvered muscles of Draco's thighs a regretful glance, before heaving himself out of bed too (and he's gratified to notice that Draco's eyes drop helplessly from his mouth to his bare chest to his cock before Draco's resolve hardens and he heads for the bathroom).

His voice echoes back through the open door. " _And_ you have a massive bath! What else have you been holding out on, you git? I'm definitely staying here. Though I'm not sure that bed is up to snuff if we're both intending on sleeping in it. Maybe when the elves come to rearrange the place, we can see what they can do for it?"

Harry's reply of assent is lost in the enticingly domestic sound of energetic splashing, and he takes a minute to indulge that helpless, fond smile (the one that's always threatening to just take over his face entirely whenever he's with Draco). He can't even bring himself to care that he's standing naked, alone, and smiling like a loon, but then Draco informs him in an imperious tone that he needs someone to wash his back for him, and why doesn't Harry come in and prove that he's good for something. And then Harry simply _has_ to go and pour a jug of icy water all over Draco where he's relaxing in the bath, because some things really don't ever change.

* * *

It's evening time, and they still haven't left the bedroom. The elves had very kindly brought up a tray of dinner for them, and Draco had said that they'd be better off staying in bed anyway, as if they emerged now it would be completely obvious what they had been up to for the day, and anyway, the rest of the staff were due to arrive in the morning and they should get an early night. And Harry doesn't argue, because he just can't when faced with the lure of Draco in his bed. 

The sun is sinking gracefully in the sky by the time they're clean and full of good dinner, and Harry can finally understand why it's called the Golden Hour, when he sees Draco bathed in evening light. Every stretch of his skin, every glinting strand of hair, every smoky fleck in the silver of his irises is gilded by the setting sun, and Harry can't seem to stop looking at him.

They stand on either side of the bed, Draco looking uncharacteristically rumpled and young in a white t-shirt and cotton pyjama bottoms, and Draco says decisively, "There's nothing for it, Potter. I demand at least a queen size if I'm to share. We had better call the elves back in."

But Harry can feel that shiver in the air again, that expectant hum, the rolling press of _potential_ , and he grins at Draco as he presses a hand to the wall behind the headboard of the bed.

"What do you think, old girl?" he asks, feeling a bit silly at speaking it aloud, but knowing at the same time that it feels right. "We'd like to share, if it's alright with you?"

And Harry knows by Draco's widening eyes that he feels it too, all of a sudden, in the weighty pause that follows, and then there's a delighted sound, like the jubilant pop of a champagne cork, and the bed spreads itself, widening and stretching until it tumbles them both onto its newly-expansive mattress. Harry laughs out loud, and then Draco is grinning back at him and politely saying, "And could we possibly have a door into the other room, please?" and Harry nods, and then dear old Hogwarts does that weird rippling thing and there's a gorgeously-carved door right there in the wall, standing open invitingly into Draco's old room which is now equipped with two wide desks and those twirly swivel chairs that Harry likes so much (swinging round and round is good for the concentration, he's always said it, though Vikander would beg to differ).

And so it's with a summer moon spilling its light through the casement, and Draco Malfoy pressed warm and sleep-heavy against him (even though their bed is big enough for four) that Harry falls asleep that night, certain that he's exactly where he's meant to be.

* * *


	3. Best of Both Worlds

Work begins properly early the next morning, though even that isn't as painful as it should be, since Draco is immensely persuasive at coaxing Harry out of bed and into that enormous bath, despite the ungodly hour.

Before breakfast, Draco insists on having a strategy meeting to discuss their investigation. It starts with Draco sitting cross-legged on the bed, but that proves to be such a distraction for Harry that they have to move things into the other room when Draco sees the look in his eyes. 

Harry has always been more of an instinctive investigator, allowing the case to lead him, absorbing the facts but allowing his focus to shift and change depending on how things develop. Draco is the opposite—a ruthless planner, absolutely rigorous when it comes to evaluating and assigning each task. They do shout over each other a bit to begin with, and they each find the other a bit irritating, but as with most things, they find that the more they discuss, the more they understand how their methods complement each other. Harry feels strongly that the attacks on the animals are where they should begin, and Draco has already drawn up a schedule of blood tests and examinations.

He's positively gleeful when he talks about using the Hogwarts Potions lab for the battery of experiments he needs to run, and Harry finds himself thinking of small, pointy Draco with his pale face upturned to Snape worshipfully, back in the bad old days. Harry had hated him so much, back then, with a passion and focus that probably wasn't normal, now that he thinks about it. And Draco, for all his posturing and bullying—well, he had been just a child, Harry knows now, like all the other little ones who walk through the doors of the Great Hall and wait for a talking hat to determine the course of their futures. That misguided show-off of a little boy is still in Draco somewhere, he knows, though the viciousness has rounded itself out into a sharp-witted, single-minded intensity that's pretty bloody compelling, if Harry's honest with himself. Harry can feel his face doing something a bit helpless and fond as he watches Draco through the play of shimmering dust motes in the fingers of sun that slice through the window.

"What do you actually know about the blood curse so far?" he asks. He is curious, but he also just likes hearing Draco talk about work. He thinks it's sweet, he realises (though he's quite sure that young Harry would have punched himself in the nose if anyone had ever told him that he'd find Malfoy _sweet_ ).

Draco rolls his eyes, which is a pretty safe bet that he's about to say something a bit obnoxious, and doesn't disappoint.

"Nothing much, as of yet, because everyone in Mysteries is utterly incompetent when it comes to blood magic. Except for me, of course. But I can tell you one thing straight away, just based on my research into the findings they've already gathered—I'm fairly sure that it's not a blood curse at all. Yes, the symptoms match, but blood curses are usually inflicted magically. There's absolutely no reason that the attacker would need to leave a physical wound to curse the victims. So I have my suspicions about the attacks, and I have to say it's a bit worrying. And really, the Headmistress should have known better than to leave it for so long in the first place without calling me in! This has been going on for months, Potter—months!"

Harry supposes that there had to come a point in his career when _he_ would be the rational, moderate person in the partnership, so he says reasonably, "It can't have been easy to join all the dots, at first. Hagrid only found out about most of the cases after Leticia was attacked, and even then, they couldn't have guessed that it was anything serious. None of the creatures were badly injured—the only mark on them was one tiny graze, and those healed up in no time. But they _did_ get the Mysteries team on it once they thought it was a blood curse—it wasn't Minerva's fault that you were off jaunting around China at the time."

Draco looks sceptical, but Harry soldiers on.

"Yes, yes, you're the Ministry's foremost authority on blood magic, as you've told me many, many times. Would you have had Minerva call you halfway across the world to deal with a weird wasting sickness in wildlife? Are you telling me that you'd have dropped everything and come trotting up to Scotland to investigate the Curious Case of the Infested Thestral? Or maybe she should have had you take a jaunt into the Forbidden Forest to chat with Aragog about how many of his great-great-grandchildren were turning up weak and frightened and unable to spin webs?"

Malfoy turns those arresting smoke-coloured eyes on Harry. 

"No, Potter, you absolute dolt. But they _should_ have called me in the minute that the attacks started happening within the castle. Magical pets being infected with an unknown wasting illness? Do you know how hard it is to inflict lasting damage on a Kneazle, Potter? They're incredibly powerful, magically speaking, and they're wily as fuck and fierce as Basilisks. If anyone had happened to mention to me that a load of Magical Creatures had been found disoriented and weak, with wounds—even tiny ones, Potter, Dark Magic doesn't need a lot of room to spread, you know—then I would have been back here like a shot. And especially since not one of them shows any signs of improvement after all these weeks. Any of those details should have alerted them to the fact that they were dealing with something pretty sinister, and probably fairly powerful."

The crease between his eyes deepens as he continues, and Harry realises that Draco is genuinely worried about the attacks. It's a sobering thought—Draco is usually totally fearless (or at least, puts on a convincing impression of it).

"And, ooh, I don't know—perhaps if someone had told me then about the rest of it, the Kneazles and the owls and the Thestral and the spiders and the hedgehogs and the fucking birds, I'd have put two and two together using my unsurpassed knowledge of blood magic, and I could have run my tests and come up with an antidote _before_ two innocent students were attacked and incapacitated? You idiot!"

Harry scowls a bit at that, because all of a sudden Draco is sounding like the rational one, and Harry wonders again why no one had bothered to tell _him_ that they thought there was some funny business going on up here. All Hagrid and Neville had mentioned was that they had some sick animals, and Minerva hadn't given a single hint. Harry is uncomfortably aware that he _might_ indeed have come storming into Hogwarts, wand blazing, if he'd known, but surely even that would have been better than allowing students to be hurt within the walls? They've already had enough of that, he thinks, closing his eyes against the memory of the blinding flash of a camera shutter, and Colin Creevey's even brighter smile behind it.

When he opens his eyes again, Draco is looking at him with that incisive gaze—not pityingly, because Draco would never, but with something close to compassion. 

"I have an idea, Potter, about what it might be. And it's not good. But the fact that the attacker seems to be holding back is a good sign—if I'm right about what's happening, then those students could easily have been killed, or worse, if whoever did this wanted to really harm them."

Harry thinks about this, and then says slowly, wonderingly, "What could anyone do to them that would be worse than killing them?" but he already knows what Draco is going to say.

"I think someone's trying to steal their magic, Potter."

* * *

Draco doesn't want to say it out loud, like speaking it might be a curse or an incantation in itself, like the very words falling from his tongue might carry some sort of poison in them. Magic works strangely, after all. But he knows that Harry knows, even before he asks—Harry, of all people, can well imagine the bleak horror of a life stripped of magic. 

"I think someone's trying to steal their magic, Potter," he says sombrely, and the words drop into the room with the force of a _Bombarda_.

Harry swallows, hard, and the sound is loud in the ringing silence. The room vibrates with a shivering tension, the silence pulled so taut that Draco can almost _feel_ it, and Harry gives the wall beside him a soothing, absent-minded pat. It's as though he doesn't even know he's doing it, like he's not even aware that he can sense the magic of one of the oldest and most powerful sentient buildings in the British Isles, if not all of Europe. 

Bloody Potter and his bloody instinct, Draco thinks enviously. Draco can feel the power too, but at a distance, like there's a sheet of glass between him and the magic in the air—and even then, it's only because he spent his years of Unspeakable training refining his magical sensitivity. Everything he knows is learned; every singing molecule of magic that he senses, he has to make an effort to pry out of the atmosphere. With Harry, it's as though he's dipping into the magic, basking in it, tasting it. Under Harry's fingertips, the magic of Hogwarts is a living, feeling thing. It's weird—weird and unfair and so fucking hot that Draco feels utterly maddened by it. He sighs.

"I haven't had a chance to verify it yet, but going by what you and McGonagall have told me, and what I've seen in the Pensieve memories of the aftermath of the attacks, I'd bet the Manor that the vics are suffering from magical core depletion. The location of the injuries gives it away too—the Thestral was drained at the wingbase, correct? And the two students at the wrist?"

Harry looks aghast, and faintly queasy. "Drained?" He shudders. "Is that even possible? That someone could steal magic like that? I thought magical depletion was really rare." His face is alive in contemplation, and the sea-glass gleam of his eyes sharpens as his focus narrows. Draco can see him cataloguing all he knows about magical theory—not a lot, Draco would wager, knowing the shortfalls in the Auror training programme as he does, but Potter has a knack for surprising him, so he waits for him to speak.

"I read a bit about core depletion back after… well, after Voldemort, the Battle, you know. I was tired after it all ended—tiredness like nothing on earth, like blinking was too much of an effort. I slept for eighteen hours straight that night—you probably remember that, we were all in the Ravenclaw dorm?"

Draco _does_ remember, in fact—McGonagall assigning room space to everyone who was milling about aimlessly in the Great Hall, all of them scarcely able to believe that Voldemort was now little more than a puff of ash on the breeze. 

Sitting with his parents in the Ravenclaw dorm, all three of them on two narrow beds they'd shoved together, right in a corner where they could escape the worst of the stares. The place had been seething with Gryffindors, all of them raucous with the jubilance and relief of victory. Potter had arrived late in the evening, grey with fatigue and lost-looking. He had slept where he fell, in the bed right next to Draco, boots still on, face grimy with dust and tears. Draco had just watched him that night, knowing sleep could not save him from his thoughts, though he had eventually dozed off somewhere near dawn, lulled to sleep by the hypnotic flutter of Potter's racing pulse. His last conscious thought had been, _He's here. He's here, and he's alive_.

He shakes himself back to the present, where Harry is watching him with a flicker of amusement (and the thought echoes in him yet again, with the same disbelief he always feels when he sees Harry smiling at him like that, _He's here_ ).

"I'm not surprised you were so tired—keeping up your spell against the force of Voldemort's casting must have been a huge strain. Did you have any trouble with your casting after the Battle?"

Potter sits up straighter. He's really interested now, Draco knows. "Yes! Everything felt sluggish, like my magic was a trickle rather than a flood. I had to absolutely shove everything into my casting, just to get a _Lumos_. It was terrifying. But Hermione convinced me to go to Poppy, and she pumped me full of core replenisher and made me rest for a few days, and it all went back to normal after a while. But I'll never forget it—it was like I had forgotten how to breathe. So I read up on it, just a bit, to see how it had happened. There wasn't a lot of information on it, really, which is why I presumed it's rare. But as far as I could gather, it's something that just happens—usually due to prolonged, overpowered casting. I didn't know it was something that someone could _do_ to us. That's a chilling thought."

Draco nods. 

"It's almost unheard of," he agrees. "It's a crime, for one thing, though that's not necessarily going to put people off. But it's really, really hard to use someone else's magic. Draining them, yes, that's possible. But why would anyone bother? It's almost impossible to actually _do anything_ with someone else's magic. Accessing someone else's core—it's very advanced spellwork. Some Senior Healers specialise in it, and of course there's a small but not insignificant area of core research in Magibiology."

He frowns. "But nonetheless, there are a few details in all these cases that shout core drain to me. The symptoms are classic, for one thing, but Madam Pomfrey probably didn't even think to check their cores, because it's so rare. But from everything I found in the files, I would say there's very little doubt about it. Perhaps someone has found a way of accessing the magic they're filtering off? I'll have to read up on it."

As he speaks, Draco remembers the nights he'd spent at Grimmauld before Harry left for Hogwarts, lying in the steady glow of Harry's _Lumos_ , in the heady warmth of Harry's bed, reading over the reports of the attacks. There's something sacred in the memory of it, Draco cocooned in that precious little pocket of night, the sky outside velvety and dense with darkness, and Harry heavy with sleep beside him. Research seems easier when the rustle of each page is accompanied by the gentle rhythm of Harry's sleeping breaths.

"So first on the list is confirming my theory that the cores have been drained. Rather than barrelling in there and poking at the two students in the hospital wing, I think we should pay a visit to the sick Thestral. What do you say?"

"Good plan," Harry agrees. "We can head down there after breakfast. But I don't understand—you don't think the attacker is trying to steal magic from the Magical Creatures as well?"

For someone with such exquisite magical sensitivity, Potter can be utterly dense at times. "Why not, Potter? Magic is magic, after all. Just out of interest—what do you actually know about how your magic works, Potter?" he asks carefully. It's a bit of a loaded question, this one, and not one that magicalkind usually discuss in polite company. It's too probing, too invasive—a bit like asking someone how they like to wank. But Draco figures he knows Harry's answer to _that_ question very well (tight and fast and wet, with Draco's name on his lips), so it's probably safe to ask. And besides, since when could Potter ever be considered polite company?

The question discomfits Harry, Draco can see that. It's often the case, with Muggle-borns—they haven't grown up _knowing_ and understanding their magic like someone born into the magical world would.

"Well, it just sort of… comes out, doesn't it?"

"Beautifully put as always, Potter. Your eloquence is staggering. Where does it come _from_ , though?" 

A shrug, that customary infuriating, elegant gesture that Potter has been making since school whenever he doesn't understand something. For a moment, Draco feels a sharp, heartfelt sympathy with Severus.

"Ok, Potter, let's try an experiment." This is a risky one, but Draco has had enough training to feel confident enough about it. "I want you to cast something wandlessly, but as you do it, I want you to really concentrate on how it feels, okay?"

Harry nods, fingers already flexing and moving in anticipation.

"I'll try it with you," Draco murmurs. "Ready—okay, cast!"

Draco's own _Lumos_ springs up gleefully in the palm of his outstretched hand, but as it brightens and glows, he forces himself to really feel where it's coming from. He can sense it now, whenever he concentrates, after years of training—his core is a contented animal, purring somewhere at his heart centre, and the act of casting a spell stirs the core, pokes at it, niggles at it. With the call of the spell, the magic unspools from the core, and the cool wash of his own magic rushes through Draco's veins. It's gorgeous.

Harry is staring at his own handful of light with a bemused look, and Draco rolls his eyes. "Alright Potter, I know that you can do better than that. Really think about it this time, okay?" He closes his hand around Harry's, lets the light blink out under their interlaced fingers. He lays his other hand flat over Harry's breastbone, feels the judder and thump of Harry's heartbeat under the heel of his hand ( _He's here, he's alive_ ).

"Close your eyes." He means to sound instructive, but this close to Harry, it comes out low and breathy, like he's talking about something else entirely. Harry blinks at him once, slowly, and then his eyes fall shut. The sweeping shadow of his lashes flutters, then settles. 

Draco clears his throat, resists the urge to make a fist of his hand in Harry's shirt, and just haul Harry in to meet his mouth. "Now, Potter, just as you start to think the spell into being, let yourself feel how it begins." 

Harry's brow creases once, gently, and Draco presses the flat of his hand a little harder into Harry's chest. Harry's lips part on a gasp, the sound arrested, and his fingers twitch a moment before the light spills out from his palm. When he speaks, his voice is syrupy, drugged-sounding—like it's him that's under the spell. "I got it, that time. Felt… nice. Like something moving in me, through me. Like a part of me was becoming a bit more alive. This is going to sound stupid, but… does it come from my heart?"

Draco smiles at that, because Harry still has his eyes closed, and isn't likely to notice how foolishly fond the expression is. He had known Harry would get it fast, had been completely sure of it. Harry is raw instinct when it comes to casting—every spell he creates is an intuitive response rather than a considered one.

"Quite so, Potter. Magic is as much about intent as anything else, after all. You learned that when you were eleven. We still don't know much about it, because we can't go digging around in people's insides, and our magic dissipates when we die, so a postmortem doesn't help with any of it, but we believe that our magic does in fact generate from our heart centre. Not from the gristle and sinew of it, of course, but from something more ephemeral. A bit like the Muggle idea of the soul, I suppose. Did you happen to notice how it manifests into a spell?"

Again, that delicate, endearing crease between the eyebrows as Harry thinks. "I think—yes, I'm pretty sure—it seemed to run through my veins?"

"Arteries, actually, Potter, but yes. It's not widely talked about, but our magic runs through our blood. It's constantly moving through us, in various quantities, and then when we call on it for casting purposes, it gathers and moves towards the wand hand."

"But if it's in the blood, how do we convert it into our spellwork? We don't have to prick our fingers to let the magic out every time we perform a spell!"

"Well, that's the magical part, I suppose. No one is sure how it works, but we think that we evolved to maximise the efficiency and power of our casting. Ancient magical texts tell of wizarding folk casting spells with their whole bodies—magic just blasting out of them. But once magic leaves our bodies, it starts to dissipate and lose potency. So it works better—is stronger, more efficient, more focused—if we can gather it and send it out from a fixed focal point. The hand is the obvious choice, and our accuracy can be improved further by channelling it through something—our wands, obviously. It maintains the focus of the spellwork. Although _some_ of us"—he rolls his eyes at Harry—"are just as accurate when casting wandlessly. But you can feel it, can't you, just before you cast—you can feel the vibration of it through you, the surge of it, like something wild that wants to be freed?"

Harry nods, slowly. 

Draco smiles again, but this time he lets Harry see it—watches Harry's eyes darken as they follow the stretch of his mouth. "Do you trust me?" he asks, hand outstretched. Harry doesn't even wait a beat before taking it.

"Potter, what I'm about to do is dangerous—remember, I'm highly trained, but this is not a matter for amateurs. So no messing around with it yourself."

Harry mutters something under his breath that Draco can't quite make out, but that sounds rude—however, he subsides at Draco's unimpressed eyebrow raise and waits patiently. Draco dips his wand over Harry's index finger, a gentle motion accompanied by a whispered _Incisio_ , and watches as bright beads of blood well up along the shallow cut. He does the same to his own finger, then gently presses it against Harry's. It's oddly intimate, this schoolboy ritual, droplets of Harry's blood dappling the pad of his finger. 

"Now, Potter—cast!"

Within a split-second after thinking their spells into being, Draco can feel it, just before their joint _Lumos_ surges into place with the force of an electrical storm, no longer a pool of light but a torrent. At the same time, he feels the throb and pull of something foreign, something enticing and alluring, and he knows it's Harry's magic calling to him through the blood seal of their fingertips. It teases at the tendrils of his own magic where they leave his hand, playful and mercurial. Harry laughs out loud, presses his finger harder against the split in Draco's. "I can feel you casting, Malfoy! It's your magic, alright, it sort of fizzes and spits like it does when you're duelling, but it's almost been distilled down into something purer. Does that make sense?"

"That's because you're getting it straight from the source, Potter. I told you, it's concentrated in the bloodstream right before the moment of casting, so you're getting the strongest possible blast of it. But can you feel how dangerous this is? Imagine cutting someone open right at the moment of their casting. Imagine how quickly you could drain them? It's why we have a whole team of Spellforgers in Mysteries devoted to creating protective and healing spells focused on injuries. It's too dangerous otherwise."

Potter is whiter than bone, suddenly and horribly blanched of colour at Draco's words. "Do you mean… when I… with the _Sectumsempra_ … I could have drained your core?"

Draco remains impassive. He and Harry have talked and fucked their old history out many a time before, but for all the times that Harry has licked a reverent trail over every silvered pucker of skin on Draco's chest, he's never known about the way Draco had felt his power leaching out of him with every wet pulse of blood. Unconsciousness due to blood loss had been a blessing for him, and when he woke up in the hospital wing, he'd already been hooked up to some of Severus' own Core-Replenishing Potion. Say what you will about his teaching methods, but Severus had known his stuff when it came to blood magic. 

He knows his voice sounds crisp and distant, but better that than show any trace of self-pity. He had been a little shit back then, after all, and being sliced up by Potter in a disused girls' toilet was far from the worst thing that had happened to him that year. "Don't worry about it, Potter. It was fine—I was a bit sluggish for a few days, but ended up right as rain once Snape got his remedies into me. In any case," he adds ruefully, "it wasn't a quick drain, because I wasn't even casting when I started bleeding. That Cruciatus of mine was a dud—probably the only good thing I managed that year."

The trouble with Harry, Draco reflects, is that he has a tendency to brood. If Draco had his way, he'd keep everything between them so bright that there's never a chance for any shadow of memory or pain to fall. But it's impossible, given everything they've been through together, to keep the bad memories away. The only thing Draco can do is lead Harry out into the light again.

"Enough of this little trip down memory lane, Potter. My magic is fine—you felt it for yourself. So now you know how it all works, we're going to try to increase your sensitivity to the way magic moves. Hold on, just let me close these up— _Episkey_! Right, now we're all healed, so we won't be getting direct access to each other's magic anymore. But keep hold of my hand—let's see if you can increase your awareness of the process."

They spend an enjoyable fifteen minutes casting and recasting wandlessly, wand hands clutched tightly. By the end of it, Draco can easily feel the subtle gathering crackle of energy that signifies when Harry's magic is about to leave him, and more importantly, Harry is smiling again and gleefully talking about how Draco's magic feels fizzy, like it's tickling him. It's a good morning's work, Draco thinks, but it's really time for them to get to breakfast. It's the first day that they'll have a full complement of staff, and Draco wants to make a good impression at his new fake job. He's also itching to get down to the stables to see to the poorly animals, and test out his hypothesis about the core drainage. 

Harry seems perfectly happy to head down to breakfast in his faded old sweater and jeans, but that idea is met with what Draco knows is a particularly eloquent expression of horror on his own face that he can't quite hide, and then Harry laughs and shrugs the sweater off and replaces it with a soft cotton shirt, so well-worn that it feels like velvet. It's marginally more professional than his previous attire, but it makes him look so fuckable that Draco feels utterly doomed to being in a state of low-simmering arousal for the day. 

Draco himself heads to the massive old wardrobe to get himself dressed—and it's full professorial robes for him, no Muggle shortcuts. His undershirt is seafoam light and gauzy in the morning sun, and the front lacings are more complicated than he'd usually go for, but he's not taking any chances when it comes to first impressions. It might not be a real job, but most people don't know that, and Draco wants them to take him seriously. 

He finishes spelling the knot of the front bindings flat, and slings on his new robes (slashed at the sleeves to allow a flash of that pristine white silk shirt to gleam through, of course, and an inbuilt Billowing Charm in the hem, for maximum effect). The tiny buttons are a bit of a ballache, but that's what wands are for, after all. All in all, he's quite happy with the full effect, though when he turns around to leave, Harry is just standing and staring at him, mouth open. 

"Draco," he says faintly, "what… what are you wearing?"

This is not the reaction he was hoping for, if he's honest with himself, and he frowns. "It's my professor garb, of course. I thought I should really go for something with a bit of _gravitas_. Why, what's wrong with it?"

Harry seems to have lost the use of his words, though he's still gazing hungrily at Draco from across the room. He swallows hard. "It's just, I've never seen you dressed like that before. You look…" And all of a sudden, he's moving towards Draco, as smooth and intent as some sort of hunting creature. "You look like something out of a dream. You're so _pristine_." 

He's close enough to feel now, and with those words he leans in and captures Draco's earlobe between his teeth, tugging at it before chasing the pull with a teasing curl of his tongue. His voice is a low rumble of desire and heat. 

"I want to mess you up. I want to undo every one of those tiny fucking buttons with my teeth. I want you to fuck me over your desk with that shirt still on. I want you to tell me how good I am for you when your cock is inside me… Professor."

Draco goes from bemused to hard and leaking in about thirty seconds flat, his cock an obscenely straining weight under his robes, and Harry, the bastard, just goes ahead and cups him through his trousers and moves his mouth to the sensitive column of Draco's throat. 

Draco has to bite down on a groan before he can manage to speak, and even getting a sentence out is quite impressive, he thinks, considering that Harry is increasing the pace of his strokes from teasing to utterly maddening. "Well, Potter, if I'd known you'd be so amenable to being bent over a desk for me, I'd have done it back in Sixth Year and saved us a lot of trouble," he manages, and he's rewarded by an unsteady gasp from Harry and a strong thigh shoved in between his legs for him to move against. He's almost at the point where he's thinking about undoing all those buttons again—and breakfast be damned—when a sudden _pop!_ heralds the arrival of an unimpressed-looking house-elf. Harry freezes, though Draco can still feel him pressed hard and wanting against Draco's hip.

The house-elf sniffs, and Draco is reminded uncannily of Professor McGonagall. "The Headmistress has sent Moalie to ask if Professor Harry Potter and Professor Malfoy will be joining the rest of the staff for breakfast. The Headmistress suggests that if the Professors would like to continue their activities of yesterday, then Moalie shall bring up another tray to the room. But the Headmistress strongly recommends that the Professors leave their room today, being as they are new and the other staff members are anxious to meet them. What shall Moalie tell the Headmistress about the Professors' plans for the day?"

Draco can feel Harry shaking with silent laughter where he's still pressed hard against Draco, but Draco isn't a Malfoy for nothing, and he's more than experienced in dealing with aggrieved house-elves. It's not the most decorous position he's ever been in, but he manages to summon a degree of nonchalant hauteur when he replies. "Thank you very much, Moalie, and please convey our gratitude to the Headmistress for her consideration. Professor Potter and I were just on our way to breakfast. We're very much looking forward to making the acquaintance of all our new colleagues."

Moalie sniffs again, disbelievingly this time, but she seems mollified. Before she pops away again, she reminds them that the Headmistress has arranged a casual buffet breakfast in the staff room, so that all the teachers, old and new, might mingle and get to know each other. Her sepulchral tone leaves them in no doubt as to her thoughts on the matter of casual buffet breakfasts. Draco shakes his head in sympathy, and he thinks that he sees a smile of complicity spread across her face as she disappears from their room as quickly as she came.

"You and your fucking buttons."

Harry's voice is muffled where his face is still buried at the base of Draco's throat, but he's still laughing, a delighted gurgle of contentment that has Draco laughing back at him.

"How are you still hard, Potter, you frightful creature? Do you have a thing for exhibitionism? Would you like to take me over the kitchen table while the house-elves watch in awe at your prowess and virility? Is that what turns you on, Potter? Ouch, hands off me! Unlike you, the idea of a tea-towel-clad audience is not my idea of a good time, though as with everything, I'm open to negotiation."

He twists out of Harry's grasp, though not before he gets in one last filthy kiss that holds a wealth of promise for _later_ , and as he leaves their room, the sound of Harry's laugh echoes after him down the corridor.

* * *

It should feel very weird, strolling companionably through the echoing emptiness of Hogwarts corridors with _Malfoy_ , of all people, Harry thinks—it's certainly not something he would ever have imagined when they were sixteen and all that seemed to matter was how much they hated each other. They would never have known how to be kind to each other here back then, and just the knowledge of how far they've come has Harry smiling again, not even trying to hide it when Draco slides a glance his way and allows himself an answering grin.

The golden light of early autumn kisses the sandstone flagstones, warming the way and bringing with it that hum of expectation, of fresh starts and brimming potential, that signals the beginning of a new school term. That September feeling, Harry thinks—just as intoxicating now he's a teacher as it was when he was a wonderstruck eleven-year-old and Hogwarts meant nothing but freedom and magic made real.

They reach the staffroom just in time for breakfast, and Harry doesn't even have time to be embarrassed about the fact that Minerva clearly knows what he spent all of the previous day doing (or she has a general idea, at least, but he hopes she can't imagine exactly what they got up to). 

The staffroom is a double-height chamber almost as long as the Great Hall, but full of squashy old couches, small side tables lit by elegant little lamps, and at one end a long, scrubbed refectory table, scored with ink and pen-gouged from years of essay marking and corrections. Harry has to swallow past the lump in his throat when he thinks of how many teachers had sat here reading his father's scribbled essays, or his mum's carefully structured project outlines, and rolling their eyes at Sirius and his wasted potential. Because that's Hogwarts—brimming with generations' worth of the most mundane, prosaic history that is its own kind of blood magic, when all's said and done.

Minerva is at the top of the room, and when she claps her hands, the hubbub and chat die down instantly. 

"Welcome back, everyone. We are truly delighted to see you all back with us for another academic year. You will all have received my owls regarding our new appointments, but now we are all together, I would like to officially welcome our two newest teachers. Some of you will already know Professor Potter and Professor Malfoy, if only by reputation." There's a ripple of laughter, and Minerva gives them one of her rare smiles. "I am very excited to see what fresh insights and approaches the new Professors bring to our Defence and Charms curriculums. Please join me in welcoming them as we enjoy our breakfast." Polite applause follows, before the long-suffering Moalie and her team appear and the table is suddenly groaning with a vast array of breakfast food. 

Draco spares him one last grin, before he turns that brilliant smile on a woman who's waving frantically at him across the room. Harry's pretty sure that it's Abeo Nwakoby, who was the captain of the Harpies for a few years but left to coach Hogwarts Quidditch after a long spell of injuries—because, of course, when Draco isn't off undercover, he plays the part of wealthy playboy to perfection, and is on at least nodding terms with every celebrity in wizarding Britain, it seems like. 

Harry watches him go, smiling fondly at the sight of him sliding mercury-bright through the crowd, and wonders if he'll ever stop wanting to watch Draco wherever he goes. He's been doing it since he was eleven, after all, and it's shown no sign of abating in all that time. 

Draco reaches Abeo, and she introduces him to the people she's with—there are lots of new teachers since Harry's schooldays, but Harry knows most of them already from his visits, though since Abeo lives in Hogsmeade with her partner, and takes all her meals at home, Harry hasn't met her yet. 

Draco kisses his way around the circle of new people, causing a few of them to blush a bit, and Harry will eat his hat if there aren't some Billowing Charms built into those bloody robes of his. He definitely knows how to make a first impression.

He winks at Harry from across the room, that smile of his as much of a beacon as his sneer was ten years ago, and then Neville is wrapping Harry up in a huge hug and dragging him over to the food. As they pile their plates high and meander over to join Hagrid on one of the comfy couches, Harry wonders if that feeling he's had ever since he came back, like his heart is in flight, could actually be happiness.

* * *

After breakfast, they walk with Hagrid down to the stables to see Leticia. She's looking thinner still, and her eyes barely roll in acknowledgment when they all crowd into her stall. Little Kit—sorted Ravenclaw since Harry last saw him, and wearing his blue and bronze like armour—is with her, gently buffing sweet almond oil into the leather of her wings. She's too placid under his hands, and Harry thinks he sees the sheen of tears in Kit's eyes before he ducks his head lower and moves away from Leticia.

Draco takes his place, dropping to his knees in the straw beside her and running a careful hand along her withers. The cloudy billow of his shirtsleeve turns translucent with oily residue, and the pressed tails of his robes are trailing in the straw, but Malfoy doesn't even notice. His voice is a low croon as he speaks soothing words, and all the while his hands move, gently but with assurance, over the Thestral's shivering skin. 

"Potter, grab my wand, please?" When he takes it, his fingers slide, slick and fragrant with oil, against Harry's.

"Now, I'm going to pull up a core monitor. Watch this wand motion, in case you need to perform this at any point. _Vigilate Cordis!_ "

Above Leticia, a hazy ball of light forms. It throbs dully, and the sickly red glow of it barely emits any light. Malfoy clicks his tongue, murmurs some low, sympathetic sounds to Leticia, and spreads his fingers over the fan of her shuddering ribcage. "Serious levels of depletion," he mutters as he narrows his eyes at the Monitoring Spell that still hovers uncertainly above Leticia. Harry's heart lurches at the sight, partly out of worry for Leticia, but partly just in helpless fondness at this enticing softness that he suspects people don't really get to see.

"You're good with her," he whispers, and Draco looks up sharply and then flushes inexplicably at whatever he sees in Harry's gaze. "Well, we had the Abraxans when I was a child, of course, though naturally I wasn't allowed to go near them."

He rolls his eyes at Harry's sceptical look, before sighing.

"Yes, yes, I used to sneak in to see them whenever my father was otherwise occupied. Animals always seemed very… uncomplicated." His face is impassive as he says it, any trace of emotion flattened out of that expressive mouth, that cool silvery gaze. "And of course, we had to get rid of them all, during Sixth Year. Couldn't risk it, with Fenrir and his pack around." He swallows, eyes on Leticia.

"Right, let's get this lady back on her feet," Draco says, briskly. He fishes in the pocket of his robe, pulls out a glass vial. He shifts Leticia's head into the cradle of his lap, eases the vial into the side of her mouth, and tips her head back. She barely moves, though Harry can see the muscles of her throat working as she swallows. 

With one last lingering rub, Draco pillows her head on a soft pile of straw, and lets Harry pull him to standing. 

"She'll need to rest for today, but the potion should start to fuse with her core shortly, and it'll be fully regenerated by the end of the week." And indeed, the core monitor already looks brighter, steadier, a golden glow beginning to suffuse through the bloodred.

Madam Pomfrey won't let them near the two students until she sees how the potion affects Leticia, but in the meantime Draco works his way through the rest of the poorly creatures—a few mouldering owls, two entirely-too-subdued Kneazles, and quite a few of Hagrid's pets. He even works on the spiders, though he insists on Hagrid accompanying him, and practically runs out of the forest as soon as he's administered the potion. Harry would laugh at his obvious terror, but he's too busy running alongside him—those spiders had attacked him at a rather formative stage in his psychological development, after all, though he doesn't want to think too hard about why he didn't just stay in the castle and let Malfoy go alone.

And in each case, Draco is right—the attacks _were_ all core drains, and Draco is able to fix things really quickly, now they know what the problem is. Instead of passing the care of the creatures over to Hagrid, Draco keeps a sharp eye on them all as they recover. He even brews more of his own Core-Replenishing Potion and supervises the administration of it. And even though he snidely assures Harry that _any_ semi-competent brewer could knock up something suitable to get the victims back on their feet, he continues to do it all himself, by hand. Harry stays with him in the Potions lab evening after evening, helping him to dice, chop, and stew ingredients until Draco is happy with the quality of the potion. So, they brew and they dose and they watch, and then they wait.

* * *

In many ways, being back at Hogwarts as a teacher isn't hugely different from being at school here himself. It's more fun, in fact—Harry has no megalomaniacal evil wizards trying to kill him, and he never has to sit through History of Magic class (though he suspects that it's probably actually pretty fascinating since Binns had handed over the reins to a very competent—and infinitely more corporeal—teacher). He gets to wake up with Draco every morning, and maybe if he had let the hat sort him into Slytherin all those years ago, and had the pleasure of getting to see Draco sleeping, all lean muscles and rosy flesh and rumpled hair, then they might have learned to resolve their differences far sooner (because really, who could resist the lure of that impertinent mouth stretched into a yawn, and the clearing mist of sleep-soft grey eyes opening to the dawn?).

It's so peaceful, really, even with the din and racket of hundreds of students—there are no fresh attacks, and the weather is beautiful, and Harry's already fast friends with half of his new colleagues by mid-September. Every day, he and Draco have a strategy meeting before dinner, to discuss the case, and every day there's nothing new to report. 

The students take a while to recover—being more potent, magically speaking, than the creatures, their cores take longer to heal, and Draco has to administer the potion via a drip rather than orally. 

Madam Pomfrey won't even hear of them interviewing the patients until they're fully recovered, but once she deems them able to talk to Harry, they remember very little about what happened to them. Neither of them saw anything, and though they're clearly nervous, they can't offer any clues. Harry suspects an _Obliviate_ , though some gentle Legilimency doesn't reveal anything obvious, which would suggest that it's a very subtle and accomplished piece of work. It's a real mystery, and only the tiny healing nicks in the two students' wrists remain as visible proof of anything having happened.

In the meantime, Harry settles into his classes. Everything he enjoyed from teaching the DA comes back to him so quickly—the gentle ease of repetition, the challenge of forging a clear path towards an end result, the compassion and insight required to mould a lesson to fit the different learning styles of all the students. He's really very good at it, he thinks with surprise. The students are enthralled by him, and not just because he's Harry Potter. He's very hands on, and he allows the students to be too, remembering how he used to itch under the skin to _try_ things for himself. He also sets them projects that they can tailor to their preferred learning methods—he's equally happy to mark a rigorously researched paper on the etymology of jinxes, as he is to referee a duel that uses only wandless hexes, or supervise the disarming of a Cursed Vault. Quicker than he could ever have imagined, November dawns bright and cold and clear, and he realises that he's been teaching for two whole months.

And it's not as though Harry has forgotten why they're here. Sometimes he feels as though he could recite the facts of the case in his sleep. He's gone over the file so often that he knows it off by heart, but it's all for nothing, so far. There are no new attacks, no new leads, and it's very easy to just allow himself to enjoy the days as they slide by. And in the evenings, coming in the door of his room, dropping his bag at the desk and slinging his robes on their hook beside Draco's—well, it already feels like home. 

And there's Quidditch, of course. It's not as though Harry had given up flying, not by a long shot. In fact, he's been Seeker for the Serious Crimes league team for four years now, and he tries to get out at least once a week for a proper fly. He and Draco have even flown a few times—reckless, terrifyingly fast games of Seeker on Seeker, their old competitiveness as alive and ferocious as ever.

But nothing quite compares to the excitement of children learning to fly properly, and of flying for the pure joy of it. Abeo is an inspiring teacher, and her lessons are a firm favourite with the students. And the House Quidditch teams are as ruthless and competitive as they always were, which is a source of endless joy for Harry. He and Draco often attend practice, ostensibly to check the form of the flyers in advance of upcoming games, but more often than not they end up on their own brooms, wheeling around in the gloaming, demonstrating ill-advised and foolhardy manoeuvres in a constant display of good-natured one-upmanship, all to the roar of encouragement from the watching students.

And there's the day that Harry is on his way to a First Year class, when he sees Draco gathering his Sixth Years on the lawn outside. After watching for a few moments, he realises with delight what sort of lesson Draco has planned. Harry gathers his excited flock of First Years, and shepherds them outside to join in.

Draco is on his broom, hair askew and robes streaming behind him as he directs his students. They're all airborne too, though some of them are more confident than others. With careless flicks of his wand, Draco is levitating a variety of humdrum items—teapots, shoes, a rather handsome stuffed owl, a set of jolly nice silver spoons, a variety of mismatched socks. 

"Get ready!" Draco shouts. "Remember, this task is about improving accuracy. Don't try anything too fancy with the spells—just concentrate on your aim."

Within moments, his students start firing charms at all the items—Summoning, Locomotion, Growth, Colour Change Charms, all zipping around the sky with the whip and sizzle of fresh young magic. 

"Come on, you lot!" Draco shouts. "It's all about control. Concentrate—aim—hold your course. Don't let the wind drag pull your casting off centre, Milgrave! Fillion, what in the name of Merlin have you done to that teacup?!"

Harry cups his hands and shouts up, "Fancy making things more interesting?"

Draco just laughs and nods, before hurtling into a dive to cushion one of the more wobbly, tentative fliers with a Steadying Charm.

Harry starts to _Accio_ brooms for his own students. 

"Right, everyone. I want you practicing your Knockback Jinxes, and all the colours of the Sparks Spells please. Let's see how many of the Sixth Years we can hit before they finish their lesson."

There may once have been a noisier class in the history of teaching at Hogwarts, but Harry rather doubts it. The students howl with laughter and frustration, and the air rings with the sound of delighted young voices casting and re-casting, until they hear the echo of the final bell from the castle, and the students all head in for dinner, still laughing and dusting multi-coloured sparks from their hair and clothes as they go.

And Harry's so _glad_ about it all—so full of contentment, and a sort of easy settled feeling—that he can't help kissing Draco as they put the brooms away. One chaste, close-mouthed brush of lips, one nuzzle along the arch of Draco's cheekbone, one delicate lick at the curve of Draco's jawline, and then more and more kisses that become increasingly demonstrative, until Draco wrenches himself away regretfully, putting up a restraining hand to stop Harry from chasing his mouth again.

"I suppose we had better stop there," he muses. "I'm not in the least bit averse to broomshed sex with you, Potter—Merlin knows I imagined it enough times back in school, though there was a lot less cuddling in that fantasy, I have to say. " He bats Harry's questing hands away again. "We're cutting it too close, though. The Hufflepuffs will be down in fifteen minutes for their practice." He smiles, a wicked curl of the lips. "Ah well, perhaps we'll have to revisit this location over the Christmas break. Meanwhile, I'll just have to fuck you in our bed. Let's go."

And they do—they just drop the brooms, and grab hands, and they run back to the castle, and when it comes down to it, Harry is pretty sure that no exciting broomshed sex could ever be better than being fucked by Draco Malfoy in the bed they share.

* * *

It's Friday evening, and Harry is worrying that he introduced a Boggart too early to his First Year class. Clemency Burgess had hysterics when the Boggart presented her with her mother lying cold and lifeless; there was a near riot when a truly horrifying werewolf appeared to Kyron Romulus (and where was he even getting this nightmarish impression of weres, Harry wonders, thinking once again of Remus' gentle reserve); Hagrid's friend Kit went utterly white when he was confronted with a perfect twin of himself (and once again, Harry wondered what sort of troubled life that sweet boy had experienced, to demonstrate such a degree of self-loathing). He had misjudged the class—he saw now that there was a reason Boggarts had always been kept for the Third Year curriculum—and even a chat with Minerva, and her assurances that every new teacher made mistakes, hadn't alleviated his disappointment in himself.

He allows himself a satisfyingly forceful door slam as he enters their room, causing Draco to jolt in his seat. He _had_ been lying almost supine in his swivel chair, feet up on Harry's desk (the prick wouldn't dream of putting feet on his own desk, of course), but Harry's loud entry shocks him upright. He swears, creatively and with vigour, when the tumbler he's holding (rather overfull of what smells like Draco's favourite Shandon Bells brandy) spills all over the pile of marking that he's been lazily working his way through. 

"Potter, you unmitigated wanker. That's my best quill!" He brandishes a beautifully-formed ostrich quill at Harry threateningly. It's now drenched, bedraggled, and soggy with booze. Harry steps in close, catches him, leans down and kisses the translucent skin at the bend of his wrist, then licks up along the palm of his hand to where the brandy is still dripping off the quill. 

In one swift movement, Draco throws the quill across the room, and watches as it falls with a faint, wet noise. "Farewell, sweet quill," he mutters. "That'll be dry in the morning. It had better still work, or you'll be for it, Potter."

Harry laughs, recaptures Draco's hand, and moves in even closer. 

"Malfoy, are you drunk?" He murmurs it into the shell of Draco's cupped palm, dips his tongue into the crease of a lifeline, follows a beckoning finger until he can suck at the tip. 

"Not as drunk as we're going to be, Potter. We're going out tonight," Draco replies with a wicked smile, though Harry is pleased to hear that his voice is loosened up by booze and desire. "You're going to have to catch up. Why don't you have a drink while I suck your cock?"

And then, because it's Draco and he's a man of his word, he goes ahead and does just that. But first, he grabs the bottle of brandy and takes a leisurely pull from it, not bothering with his glass. Even the sight of his pale throat working as he swallows makes Harry feel weak with wanting him. 

Still sitting in that convenient swivel chair (thank you, Hogwarts, Harry thinks fervently), Draco swings around, trapping Harry in the bracket of his thighs against the desk. It's intoxicating, standing over him as he sits, seeing the sheen of candlelight rippling over the silvery fall of his hair as Harry runs a hand through it and grips hard enough to raise a gasp. Harry is hard—so hard, already, from nothing but the promise of Draco's nearness—and the press and rub of his tailored trousers is a maddening friction. 

Draco should look vulnerable like this, allowing Harry to stroke a hand from his crown to the tender skin at the nape of his neck, with his open mouth panting heat over the straining bulge of Harry's flies. He doesn't. He looks positively lazy, almost amused by Harry's swift arousal. 

With one languid flick of his finger, the bottle dances across the desk towards Harry. 

"Drink," Draco instructs.

Harry does, tipping the lip of the bottle against his own, the fruity tang of the brandy sharpening into heat as he drinks. Draco presses the heel of his hand against Harry's cock, watches a spot of moisture darken and spread across the wool of the trousers. 

"You're so wet for me," he says, carefully, almost like he's asking a question. 

"Yes," Harry breathes, and thumbs the clasp of his trousers open, eases the zip down over the curving weight of his dick, blushes as another gleaming pulse of precome swells at his slit.

And there isn't anything else that Harry can say to Draco, except another yes that's almost more groan than word, as Malfoy leans in and licks the head of his cock clean. And he follows it with yes after yes after yes. 

He whispers it into the mouth of the brandy bottle as he drinks again, deeper this time, to try and numb the heat of his own outrageous desire. 

He mutters it over and over when Draco seals his mouth in an obscene grip over the head of Harry's cock, and begins a wet, delicious descent and ascent. 

He spits it as an invective, a furious _fuck, yes, fuck_ , when Draco takes the base of him in a punishingly tight fist and runs his tongue over the flared ridge of Harry's glans. 

All too soon, he's thrusting helplessly against the tormenting velvet of Draco's tongue and coming in a blinding rush of yet more _yes_ es, with one hand fisted tight in Draco's hair and the other pressed hard to Draco's cheek, where he can feel the insistent nudge of his own cock from the outside. 

Harry is still pulsing into Draco's mouth when Draco frantically frees himself and begins to wank, his hand working in a furious blur on his own shaft. He shoves himself to standing, Harry's hand still tangled in his hair and forcing him to bare his throat, standing so close that his fist thumps against Harry's stomach on every upstroke, his leaking slit leaving a sticky smear of precome in Harry's pubic hair at each pass. He stiffens, the muscles of his stomach tensing where his shirt is rucked up, and the cords of his throat straining. Harry bites down on the ridge of his exposed clavicle, sucks a mark over the enticing flutter of his pulsepoint, whispers one last yes into the bobbing swell of his Adam's apple, and Draco finally goes over the edge in a glorious frenzy of swearing and rutting, and the warm, wet splatter of his come all over Harry's softening cock.

* * *


	4. Skin Of Your Teeth

"The stars are winking at me," Harry declares with a confidence that only the very finest brandy can provide.

Draco laughs out loud at that, just because he wants to, and because he can, walking with Harry to Hogsmeade in the ringing clarity of a frosty Scottish autumn night, with no one to hear him but the trees and Harry. Harry, who looks uncanny and slightly feral, face moon-licked where it's tilted to the sky. Harry, who is flushed and rumpled and well-used, his mouth swollen from kisses and too much straight brandy. Harry, who is definitely a bit slow and languid from drink—but then again it could be the spectacular (if Draco does say so himself) orgasm of earlier that has Harry walking like his bones are semi-liquid, and his arm a loose but possessive curl around Draco's shoulders. Harry, who's walking along beside Draco through the streets of Hogsmeade as though it's a perfectly normal, nice thing to do. 

Draco doesn't quite know what to do with himself and the vaguely horrifying feeling of hope and desire that all of this raises in him—not sexual desire (though Merlin knows there's rather an excess of that as well, when it comes to him and Harry), but a sort of quiet, hopeless wish that this kind of tenderness could last between them. It's not rational, he knows—Harry deserves roots, a strong foundation, a future with someone who goes to bed early and brings him tea in the morning. His life has been complicated enough—the last thing he needs is a restless, heartsick wanderer with too much to prove to the world, and not enough inclination to be patient about it, who will _never_ be arsed to brew a pot of tea in the morning, but has no compunction about licking the taste of brandy off the inside of Harry's lips while they're both shuddering down from orgasm and covered in each other's come. For instance.

And okay, yes, Harry does _seem_ happy enough when he's with Draco—which Draco really is glad about—and especially since they got to Hogwarts. Something in Harry seems to have settled over the last month—when he was working Serious Crimes every day, he was brimming with that same ferocious intent that Draco remembered from school, a sort of guarded, watchful intensity that never seemed to let up. Even in his most intimate and private moments back then—rocking himself in a lust-dazed rhythm up and down on Draco's cock, the lazy stroke and twist of his own hand on his cock a counterpoint, or holding Draco open so he could watch the moment of delicious intrusion when he slid his lube-slick cock inside him—even then, he was always careful. Like he was waiting for something bad to happen, like he couldn't quite bring himself to really let go.

Draco can only see it now, because of the difference in Harry. Maybe it's the forced domesticity of the whole thing—their brooms propped together in a corner, Harry wearing Draco's scarf rather than his own as often as not, walking down to breakfast together, the reassuring dip of the bed when Harry gets in (and just the fact that he's even there, every night, always getting into _their_ bed). It's a novelty, the whole thing, but it's something they would probably never have arrived at if left to their own rash devices. Draco hates how much he likes it. 

He doesn't know how to just _be_ with someone else, like this, how to share, how to compromise. He was never taught to, as a child, and his rotten family had done enough of a number on him that he was fairly sure he wouldn't be much of a healthy choice for anyone, let alone an emotionally-fragile Saviour who deserves better. But now, just for tonight, with the familiar solid heat of Harry pressed against him, he's drunk and reckless enough not to worry about allowing himself to be happy.

They reach The Blue Man to find it glowing with light and packed to the rafters with locals and Hogwarts staff alike. It's still known as the new pub in the village, despite being nearly ten years old, and Draco thinks it's better than trying to find a space for themselves and their shared history in The Three Broomsticks, or Merlin forbid, The Hog's Head.

They're shouted over to a table of their colleagues as soon as they head in the door, and everyone shoves up along the settle and Harry manages to charm a small stool away from a table full of giggling teens. Hannah waves over at them from behind the bar and spells a tray to whizz over with their drinks, and for one second Draco feels dizzy with the terrifyingly large feel and shape of whatever _this_ is becoming. Then Harry knocks a knee against his, eyebrows raised in a (remarkably, for Potter at least) subtle note of concern, and Draco lets himself breathe out and press his knee back into Harry's, and they drink.

It's much, much later, and they are many more drinks down. Draco is fighting his way to the bar, since Hannah's tray charm is becoming too tricky to manage with all the crowds.

He relaxes into the crush and press of bodies, takes a breath of air that smells of candle wax and booze and too much warm skin, and promptly almost jumps out of his own skin when an icy grip catches at his wrist and tugs. 

He turns, hand already moving towards his thigh holster, only to slump with relief when he meets the familiar laughing eyes and wicked smirk of someone he really wasn't expecting to see here, and is swiftly enveloped in an enthusiastic yet chilly hug, that feels like what Draco imagines it must be like to hug an ice sculpture. 

"Raphael!" He grins, in spite of himself, before pulling back to get a proper look and return the smile properly. "How long has it been? And more to the point, why are you _here_ frightening the living daylights out of me in a pub in Scotland? I didn't realise you were coming over!"

Raphael laughs, the same impertinent curl of the lip and enticing flash of incisors that Draco remembers so well. "It's been almost three years since I've seen you in the flesh, Draco, my darling. Yes, yes, I know I've had a few owls from you. But I haven't heard from you in over six months so I presumed you were on a mission somewhere. And I only just arrived—it's a flying visit, literally, haha! I'm just over for a coven meeting with the locals." He eyes Draco curiously. "And what are you doing here, Draco? Is this a job? Am I blowing your cover? Should I put on a fake moustache and loudly call you by a different name?"

Draco rolls his eyes fondly. "Has the news not reached Paris, then? No, I'm teaching at Hogwarts now. Charms, in fact. You can call me Professor, if you like."

He knows as he says it that it hits the wrong note, but it's been so long since he's seen Raphael that he's almost forgotten how easily things between them slide into flirtation. Raphael's eyes darken up, just a touch, so subtly that no one else would notice it in the guttering light of the wall sconces, but just enough to cause a shiver to run over Draco's skin. Raphael moves a shade closer, places a freezing cold hand on Draco's hip, and lets his smile curve wider so Draco can see him touch the tip of his tongue to first one cruelly sharp fang, then the other. "I can call you whatever you want me to, Draco," he murmurs, and his voice is velvet with dark promise.

Draco jerks backwards as far as he can go, which isn't much considering the crowd, and opens his mouth to say something—anything—that will pull things back into easy friendship (though he and Raphael were never friends—or never _just_ friends, anyway), but Raphael's hand is still clasped over his hip, radiating cold. Which is, of course, when Harry arrives, fighting his way through the crowds with a smile that dies as he notices exactly where Draco is, and who he's been talking to, and how casually proprietorial the curl of Raphael's hand is on Draco's hipbone.

* * *

Draco isn't proud of himself, and he thinks he could probably have handled things with more aplomb, but the look on Harry's face is so bereft that before he knows it, he's knocking Raphael's hand off him and—scarcely believing his own clumsy body language—sliding his own hand into Harry's. They don't normally do this in public—Draco wouldn't want to give people the wrong impression, make it seem like he _expects_ anything from Harry—but he can't resist the familiar, graceful curve of Harry's palm, the slight rasp of broom calluses, the reassuring strength of his grip. 

Raphael, to his credit, just raises an eyebrow and smiles. "Harry Potter, isn't it?"

Draco's voice is cool when he interjects, but at least it's steady. "Raphael and I are—were, I suppose—colleagues. You remember when I took a year to study for a Mastery in blood curses at the _Robert-Houdin_? Raphael was a guest lecturer there. He's been kind enough to consult on a few cases for me since, and I've returned the favour once or twice."

Raphael's smile is starting to look a bit dangerous now, and, faster than Draco can move, he reaches out and presses a frigid thumb to the darkening bruise that Harry had mouthed into Draco's pulsepoint, and that he had stupidly, sentimentally, left unhealed. 

"Colleagues—is that what we're calling it? I see." Draco has spent a lot of time with Raphael in the past, both at work and in his bed, and he has never heard quite that edge of dark amusement in him before. Harry bristles, opens his mouth to say something, and Draco almost wants to hear what he's going to say. But Raphael forestalls him, putting out a hand to shake. "So Draco finally did something about that schoolboy crush of his, I'm glad to see. And you two are _colleagues_ now? In that case, any friend of Draco's, and all that. Please, call me Raphael."

Draco glares at Raphael, mortification warring with a grudging admiration at his cheek, and opens his mouth to most vehemently assure Harry that he certainly did _not_ have a schoolboy crush on him, that they were sworn enemies, and arch-rivals, and that he wholeheartedly meant every one of those Potter Stinks badges at the time, but Harry (never the most polite at the very best of times) is swearing and snatching his hand back from Raphael's grasp, and staring at him, wide-eyed and suspicious.

"You… you… Draco, did you know that he's…?"

And now it's Raphael's turn for a vigorous eye roll, and Draco grits his teeth at the awkwardness before he turns and gives Harry a reassuring, if somewhat forced, smile.

"Yes, Potter, though perhaps you could stop shouting about it in front of the entire pub? I'm well aware that Raphael is a vampire."

* * *

"I'm just… confused, I suppose," Harry says, staring down at his hands.

They've come outside to talk properly, and are sitting in a tense little row on a bench in the park across the road. Harry has cast one of his particularly ebullient Warming Charms, and Draco is sweating a bit along his hairline, though that may be just nerves. At least Raphael is beside him, giving off an aura of glacial chill. Draco is in the middle, feeling as though he'd like to be just about anywhere else right now. Harry hasn't looked at him properly since he saw him with Raphael's hand on him. Raphael is bemused, lounging ostentatiously on the bench and allowing the moonlight to glint off those deadly-looking incisors, though Draco suspects he's feeling a bit put out, and is putting on the louche Lord of the Night act to fuck with Harry.

As usual, it's up to Draco to smooth things over, and really, he thinks, this is all getting a bit much. He decides to take his usual approach with Harry for now (that is to say, be breathtakingly rude to him until he either laughs or punches something—hopefully the former).

"You're always confused, Potter. What precisely is it this time?"

Harry shrugs helplessly. "It's just, I've never met a vampire. They don't mix with the rest of us, I thought they didn't like wizards! Which is why I was surprised to see one just casually mingling in a crowded pub, and seeming so"—and he flicks a resentful glare at Draco from under the wayward tumble of curls that fall into his eyes—"so _friendly_ with you." His voice is sullen, the curl of his lip derisive. Draco wants to kiss the scorn away, he realises in horror at his own soppiness.

On the other side of Draco, Raphael laughs, and stretches to show off the sharp gleaming planes of his stomach where his shirt has ridden up. He's not dressed for November in Scotland, but an imperviousness to cold is one of the upsides of being one of the legion of the undead, Draco supposes.

"Raphael lives in France, Potter, so it's actually completely normal." 

Harry still looks uncomprehending, and Draco realises yet again just how little time Harry has spent outside of Britain. By his reckoning, Harry's had two holidays in all the time they've been friendly, one of which was a trip to Romania to see Charlie with the extended Weasley clan, and the other was a memorably filthy weekend in Bratislava with Draco. But that time, they didn't leave the bedroom for twenty-four hours, and then Harry had to get an early emergency Portkey home after a particularly gruesome murder case broke. So it's understandable that he doesn't expect to see a vampire walking around Hogsmeade, because British vampires _do_ tend to keep away from wizarding society. Draco's heart does that stupid leap of compassion that it sometimes does when he thinks about how much of their world has been kept from Harry. Beside him, Raphael chuckles, and Draco knows that he's noticed the quickening gallop of Draco's pulse. Bloody vampires.

He continues smoothly, ignoring Raphael. "The French magical community is far more inclusive than ours. They have a smaller magical population, and their system of government is hugely progressive. Mer, weres, vampires, wizardingkind, fae, elves, goblins—they all have equal standing in social and legal matters. There's little to no segregation in French magical society." He sighs, injects what he thinks is a convincing enough note of exasperation into his tone. "Did you learn nothing from History of Magic in seven years at Hogwarts?"

Harry looks at him disbelievingly. "You're telling me anyone could have learned _anything_ from Binns?"

"In France, we have left all your petty British prejudices behind," Raphael interjects snidely, somehow managing to imply that any discrimination against vampires is down to Harry, personally. Harry bristles. Draco can almost _feel_ his righteous outrage. "Vampires in Britain have been shunned and unjustly treated for centuries, even within the magical community. I'm an ambassador for the _Ministère de Magie_ —we're working with the British Ministry on an outreach programme for inclusivity in magical society. It's much-needed here, alas." He shoots a poisonous look at Harry. "My kind have suffered many injustices at the hands and wands of wizarding kind. There is a lot of work to do here."

He turns to Draco. "I'm meeting the Congress of the Scottish coven tomorrow, to see if they're willing to enter into talks with the Ministry. But I can't imagine they'll be eager to rush into anything. I hope that they'll send a delegation with me to London when I travel down on Sunday, but the coven members rarely leave Kinlochdubh these days." He shoots a poisonous look at Harry. "Still a lot of discrimination against them among wizarding folk."

Beside Draco, Harry stiffens. When Harry speaks, his voice is casual, but Draco knows him well enough to sense the prickle of alertness that's running below the surface—and he knows his magic well enough to feel the gathering storm of it roiling and seething, barely contained. Harry is agitated.

"So there's a coven at Kinlochdubh, is there? Funny, I never knew that—it must be just across the Lake from Hogwarts, is that right?"

Raphael eyes him curiously (which Draco knows must be a sign that Harry's heart rate is climbing), but Harry leans around Draco confidingly and gives Raphael one of his blazing smiles—it's transformative, that smile, full of confidence and mischief, and it changes the mood entirely.

"Look, mate," Harry continues blithely, "I'm sorry that we got off on the wrong foot. I'm not exactly known for being great with people, you know? But what you're doing sounds brilliant. One of my dad's best friends was a werewolf, and my godson is part were, and I had a great friend who was a house-elf. I'm all in favour of breaking down barriers." He puts a hand out across Draco, shakes Raphael's hand again, without flinching this time. "If there's any way I can help—raise awareness of your campaign—just let me know."

Draco's been an Unspeakable too long to let it show, but now he's certain that Harry is up to something, because he has never in his life known Harry to _offer_ any help that might involve him being in the public eye. He hates any sort of publicity, would never pursue it. Draco narrows his eyes at Harry suspiciously.

Raphael, on the other hand, seems to relax—Harry has that effect on people when he wants to, Draco knows. "Of course, Harry—that's very kind of you. I'll be sure to get in touch if there's anything you can do. Unfortunately, I think there's going to be a lot of work to do with the coven before they agree to any sort of dealings with the Ministry. They're so reclusive, I'm not surprised you've never run into them—even though you're practically next door neighbours!" He sighs. "They're not even all that happy to deal with me, if I'm honest. They won't even let me stay in the village with them—I've had to take lodgings in Hogsmeade while I'm here. But perhaps we'll make some headway tomorrow at the talks."

Harry makes a sympathetic noise, and then gets to his feet, giving Draco a meaningful prod with his elbow as he stands. 

"Well, the very best of luck with it, but I think Malfoy and I should be going now. Early start, and all that." As he speaks, he's hauling Draco to his feet, and though Harry's voice is still deceptively casual and friendly, Draco can still feel the frantic skitter of his magic. "Give us a shout if we can help with anything!"

Raphael rises too, and for the first time this evening, his smile is genuine. "Thank you, Harry. And Draco, I hope we won't leave things so long again. I have missed you, you know." And then the sweetness of his smile sharpens up a bit, and he lets his eyes darken until they're all pupil, and he says, "I'd imagine that you're still absolutely delicious." Draco shakes his head at him, frowning, and Harry's relentlessly friendly smile threatens to fall as Draco feels the fierce warning crackle of his magic through their joined hands.

Raphael is still talking, either not noticing the atmosphere, or not caring. "I'll be at the Ministry in London for the next few weeks. I would love to catch up properly, Draco. And if Harry would like to come along, well—I'm always happy to share."

His laugh is an incongruously bright, merry sound as he honest-to-Merlin does the whole bat transformation thing (and talk about milking the vampire clichés, Draco thinks with exasperation) and sweeps away into the velvet night, Harry gaping after him.

* * *

Really, Harry thinks, he would have expected this whole vampire mystique thing to be a myth, along with the coffins and the high-necked capes. But then he had seen Draco in the pub being _grabbed_ by someone that even Harry (who tends to favour tall, posh blonds with deadly wand hands and a death wish… and now that he thinks about it, his taste in men is so specific that it can really be narrowed down to one) can see is extremely attractive. And then it turns out that the reason for Raphael being so otherworldly good-looking is because he's, well, otherworldly. 

Harry gets it, he does. The whole ice-cold skin thing is a bit of a shock initially, but Harry can imagine that a good Warming Charm would sort that right out, and that's before he takes into account Raphael's own charms, which are hot in quite another way. A smile full of filthy promise, those strong, elegant hands, and a body that looks as though it's been hewn from marble—Harry can't argue with that (though in his humble opinion, it would be far preferable if Raphael did adopt more traditional vampire fashion and wear one of those capes, ideally one of the really voluminous ones that covers the whole body).

And it isn't the vampire thing that turns him against Raphael, really—Harry would have hated anyone on sight had he come across them touching Malfoy like that, like they were staking some sort of claim on him. And it's probably stupid, because in all their years of friendship (and then this last couple of years when the friendship shifted and made room for them to explore what Harry suspects was always there between them—this mutual obsession, this all-encompassing fascination) they've never discussed being official, or exclusive, or any of those things that Harry suspects ordinary people who aren't emotionally scarred from severe childhood trauma manage to discuss in their relationships. He and Draco have never _once_ talked about what they are to each other. Harry knows he has a reputation for being foolhardy, for acting first and thinking later, but he's always had an instinct for the most precious things in his life—it's pretty easy to notice these things when you haven't really had many—and he wants to keep this thing they have, whatever it is. And Draco—beautiful, single-minded Draco, who's still so tormented by the things he did when he was a child that everything he does in his professional life is an act of penance—Draco doesn't want to be tied down, so that's that, as far as Harry is concerned. But it doesn't mean that he's not greedy for what he can get, that he won't take everything Draco offers freely.

The trouble with this assignment has not been what Harry had been worried about initially—that they would drive each other mad, both with desire and irritation, and that the job would end up buried under the rubble of their excess of feelings for each other. 

But no, the trouble (for Harry at least) is that everything has been _too_ easy—it's too beguiling, to wake up with Draco, and bounce ideas around with him, and listen to his theories about the attacks. Because it can't last—and Harry _does_ want to solve the case, of course he does, but he's worried about how hard it's going to be to go back to his old life, a life without Hogwarts, and without Draco (or at least, without him the way Harry wants him).

But that's a worry for later, because right now, there are more important things to think about. Harry realises that even though he _is_ still thinking about Draco, the singing in his blood and relentless swirling torrent of his magic is all for the case—working with Draco hasn't made him careless or distracted at all. He's still as sharp as he ever was, as capable of using his instinct, but he feels… calmer, perhaps? Less frantic, more measured. He even feels more in control of his magic, now that he can feel it so acutely. It's exhilarating.

Beside him, Draco is matching his pace, but he's looking distinctly suspicious, like he feels that Harry is _up to something_ , and Harry realises that he's still hauling him along by the wrist. He stops abruptly, shoves his face into the hollow under the hinge of Malfoy's jaw that smells most delectably of his clean, warm skin, and wraps him up in his arms, before Apparating them both to the gates of Hogwarts.

When they land, Draco pushes him away, spluttering in outrage.

"You could have splinched me, you dickhead! Warn me the next time, Potter."

Harry knows he's been careless, especially after all the brandy, but he knows he's had a breakthrough on the case, and it feels imperative to discuss it with Draco straight away, and go over their notes to see if things add up. He gives the castle gates a little stroke and they glide open silently for him, just wide enough for them both to slip through. The stars are blazing so brightly that every step of the way seems gilded by frost, but Harry begins to hurry them up the drive.

"Sorry, Malfoy, but we needed to get away from him and talk about the case. Didn't you hear Raphael back there? That's got to be the answer!" His mind is racing so far ahead of the conversation that it takes him a beat to notice Draco's confusion for what it is, and Draco has to take him by the wrist and tug him around to make him pause.

"Potter, Potter, take it easy. What are you talking about? What did Raphael say?"

Harry can't believe that Draco hasn't joined the dots up yet—some blood curse expert he is! "Malfoy, Raphael just told us that there's a village full of vampires just around the lake from here. Obviously what's been happening here must be connected to them. The Forbidden Forest leads around to Kinlochdubh, for fuck's sake. All they'd have to do is come through the Forest. It explains everything."

Of all the reactions he was expecting, Harry was most unprepared for Draco to laugh uproariously. The sound is shockingly loud in the crisp night air. Draco begins to walk back to the castle, still sniggering, dragging Harry with him by the wrist.

"Oh, Potter. Did you think that I didn't already know there's a coven there? Obviously that would have been the first place I'd have looked if _Muggles_ were being attacked and drained." He stops laughing with what looks like altogether too much effort for Harry's liking, and tucks his hand companionably into Harry's arm. "You really don't know? Well, we can't all be extremely knowledgeable about every little element of magical theory, I suppose— _someone_ has to be the muscle to my brains and it might as well be you."

He's really such a know-it-all twat sometimes, Harry thinks, but then he gives Harry's arm a little squeeze, and a smile that's so full of unexpected sweetness that Harry can't quite help smiling back.

"Alright Malfoy, I'll bite. What is this big mystery that a thicko like me can't grasp? Why are you so sure the vampires have nothing to do with this?"

"Because, Potter, vampires can't feed on wizards or witches. They can't handle magical blood at all, it drives them absolutely barmy. If it had been a vampire who fed from those students to the extent that they managed to drain their cores, the vampire would probably be dead from magic poisoning. They wouldn't have even been able to walk, let alone escape from the castle. Believe me, Potter, we would know if this was a vampire."

Harry knows he must look utterly crushed—he had been _so_ certain this was their answer, the _rightness_ of it had resounded through him. Draco's face softens further.

"I'm sorry, Potter. It was good thinking, really." And then he ruins it by being all Malfoy-ish about it. "If you're basing your theories off an astounding lack of any knowledge of blood theory or magical society in general, that is." He kisses the scowl on Harry's face, laughing into Harry's mouth as Harry kisses back despite himself.

"Vampires are Magical Creatures, obviously. But their magic is different to ours. Think of our magic as a tool that we carry with us, that we can bend and shape and use. Well, vampire magic is different. It's essentially physiological. Basically, their magic is used to power them. They don't have a working circulatory system, after all. So they run on magic. They do have certain powers, of course—you saw the bat thing, and they can retract their fangs, and of course their saliva has certain healing powers. But they don't carry magic with them to be used at will."

Harry is listening in fascination, wondering how exactly he managed to get to this point in his life without ever having even _thought_ about the staggering breadth of the magic in the world. He's lived such a narrow life, he realises with a sharp tug of regret. In school, every bit of his focus went on Voldemort, of course, which at least is understandable. But what has he been doing with himself since school finished? Straight into the corridors of the Ministry, and never even thinking of stretching his legs and stepping beyond those narrow confines. 

"Vampires usually feed on human blood—many of them have regular donors, and well-stocked blood banks. And the vast majority of vampires these days are born, not made—it's considered quite bad form to turn a human these days. They do age, but much slower than either humans or wizards, and they do eventually die—their magic naturally slows, just like our bodies do. But believe me when I tell you that a vampire cannot feed on magical blood. Anything more than a couple of sips and they start to feel tipsy. A good few gulps and they'll be blotto. Feeding for long enough to drain a magical core? That would be the equivalent of an overdose on magic. It would almost certainly kill them."

Harry knows that if Draco is saying it, then he must be correct. It's a bitter disappointment, though—he had really thought it was a proper breakthrough.

They've reached the castle now, and the huge front door opens for them without even a creak. Inside, a sconce flares to life, casting a pool of welcoming golden light in their path. 

"So vampires never feed off wizards, then. Right, I see. Well, I suppose that's that, then. Back to the drawing board." But as he speaks, he sees Draco stiffen slightly, a rosy blush staining the creamy perfection of the planes of his face, and one detail of their conversation with Raphael, the detail that's been niggling at him ever since, clicks into place. And that blush of Draco's tells him that there's something more to the story.

* * *

Draco knows that he looks a bit flushed, can feel the creeping glow of it over the crests of his cheekbones, and for a moment he wishes fervently for the perpetual, marmoreal cool of Raphael's skin. With Draco's pallor, there's never any way of hiding the heat of shame, the rosy glow of arousal, the blotchy spread of his fury. He hates it.

He starts moving at a rapid clip towards the stairs, the wall sconces guttering into life along his path, hoping to hear Harry following. Instead, Harry calls him, softly due to the late hour, but his voice rings with intensity. 

"Draco? It _is_ true that they don't feed from wizards? And, for instance, when Raphael mentioned you being delicious, he was speaking metaphorically?"

And _of course_ Harry had picked up on that comment, no matter how much Draco had hoped he wouldn't notice it—because Harry is an Auror, after all, even though it's easy to forget it sometimes. Because Draco sees him when he's sleep-heavy and pillow-creased and encroaching on Draco's side of the bed, or getting misty-eyed over ill Thestrals, or laughing aloud in sheer delight when one of his students meets their Patronus for the first time. He's soft, Harry is, tender right down to his magical core, even after everything he's been through. But he's still one of the stars of the DMLE, he's built his life around assuming (and often getting) the very worst. And he's trained himself to suppress that softness, to sharpen up his edges until he's a blade's edge of pure focus and analysis. He was never going to miss that comment of Raphael's, no matter how much Draco had hoped he would.

Because Draco doesn't want to tell him what Raphael meant. It's going to sound like more than it was, and Harry probably won't understand. Draco doesn't want to bring this looming shadow of his own past into their bed, into their new, shared life. Merlin knows they've already dealt with enough of that.

Harry's mouth is tight with something that Draco doesn't think he's ever seen on Harry before tonight, and he wonders if it could be jealousy. Harry also looks cross and tired, and Draco realises uncomfortably that even in these short few months, he's got used to Harry _not_ looking like that. It had been his perpetual expression when he was in active duty—cross tiredness, tired crossness—and Draco had been used to licking the tense lines of Harry's mouth into a smile, or fucking the tension right out of him. He hasn't had to do that here, he realises, and wonders if Harry had ever been happy, before. Draco had _thought_ he was, because when they were together, Harry had always been wild and laughing—intense, yes; stressed, sometimes; overworked, of course—and also, though he would _never_ admit it, Draco had presumed that Harry was happy, because he so _deserved_ to be. But he wonders now if being loved madly by a lot of people (including, curse it all, Draco himself), and loving lots of people back, and being _good_ , had not been enough.

The sight of that old familiar rigidity to Harry's jaw, and the weight of his calculating gaze, brings Draco back to himself, and he remembers that Harry is still waiting for an answer. And trust Harry to choose this time to go all tenacious star Auror on him, Draco thinks balefully.

He drops his voice, mindful of the echoing stillness of the castle corridor. His whisper is a disdainful hiss. "Fine, Potter, you've worked it out—there are some rare occasions when a vampire might feed off a wizard, okay? But I promise, it only happens in a very specific context, and it doesn't involve any core drain."

Draco knows that Harry trusts him, knows that Harry finds him competent, knows that Harry respects his expertise. But he still feels a lancing stab of resentment when he sees that moment that Harry's eyes narrow, and he decides to keep pushing the issue instead of just taking Draco's word for it. It's because he's been trained to push, Draco knows—Harry has learned to be dogged in pursuit of answers, to chase down the answer to every question. But Draco wishes, so fervently, that he wasn't the one having to answer the question this time.

"What are you being so cagey about, Malfoy?" Harry's voice is cool. "Why don't you just tell me the whole story, if you're so sure it has nothing to do with the case? Unless there's a reason you and your _friend_ Raphael need to keep this a secret."

And right then, Draco knows that they're about to have their first proper argument since the mission started. And it's about time, he supposes, considering that they've always been combative, though in recent years that's mellowed into a more gentle competitiveness rather than any of the viciousness or enmity that carried them through school. But right now, he's reminded vividly of Harry's stubbornness, his unflinching self-righteousness, his dismissive insistence on making his own judgements. 

And suddenly he's furious, because it isn't any of Harry's business, after all—it's in the past, and it's _private_ , and it's not as though Harry hasn't had other… dalliances, he's sure. Draco has bloody eyes, and he knows how people look at Harry, and he's even seen photos of Harry coming out of pubs, looking wild-eyed and red-mouthed and a bit undone, with strange men or women or both (in issues of the _Prophet_ that are dog-eared and days old by the time they reach Draco in whichever godsforsaken back-end-of-nowhere place he's ended up in for a new mission). 

And Draco doesn't like it, of course, but it's the way it has to be with them—their relationship up until now, such as it is, has been hastily built on shifting sands, and Draco has always been waiting for the ground to give way beneath his feet. So he doesn't think Harry is going to be angry about something that happened with Raphael, a long time ago. But, Draco thinks, Harry might be hurt—he might feel like Draco hadn't told him the full story about vampires and magical blood, like Draco was keeping a secret from him. 

It makes him snappish, this knowledge that he might have the power to hurt Harry, and wretched that he really doesn't want to, so he sounds colder than he meant to when he replies.

"It's a sex thing, Potter, alright? Sometimes, vampires like to bite while fucking. Now, are you happy? You couldn't just leave it, could you?"

Harry looks stunned, like he's taken a Bludger to the head, and Draco has to strain to hear his whispered reply. "So you did sleep with him."

As quickly as it hit him, Draco's rage rolls away like mist lifting off the sea, leaving him cold and a bit hopeless in the dim midnight chill of the corridor. He turns and begins to climb the stairs, and lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding when he hears the pad of Harry's trainers on the steps behind him. 

"I can't believe you, Malfoy. What the bloody hell did you think you were up to? Of all the stupid, reckless things you've ever done, this takes the fucking biscuit. So what, you meet this… this… sexy vampire and you just decide, oh well, of course he's an undead bloodsucking psychopath, but he has a great arse, so let's get down to some icy action, then? And you let him _feed_ from you? You've really lost the plot, Malfoy."

Draco feels tired all of a sudden, and so heartsick that he can barely formulate a proper response. Why can things never be easy, he wonders. "He's not undead. Technically. Vampires do age, though far slower than us. And Raphael is a born vampire, not a made one. Most of them are, these days. With so many willing Muggle donors, vampires don't often lose control and turn people anymore. So he's very much alive, even if he doesn't have a beating heart. And yes, he does have a great arse, actually."

"Muggle… donors? What the actual fuck, Malfoy?"

"Donors, Potter, donors. Exactly what it sounds like. Muggles who have an arrangement with local vampires to allow them to feed. Vampires are fine with Muggle blood, and most of the ones I know prefer it straight from a living source. But of course, there's also a large supply of bagged blood."

Harry looks and sounds entirely mystified, and Draco could almost laugh at his obvious confusion. Almost. 

"Why in the _world_ would a Muggle allow a vampire to feed from them? You're saying there are people who do this regularly?"

Draco rolls his eyes. They've reached their corridor now, and he stops outside their bedroom door, wanting nothing more than to just roll into the warm liminal space of their shared bed, and put this conversation off in favour of shared breaths, and the taste of warm skin, and the secret sanctity of his first name on Harry's lips. 

Harry isn't going to give in, though, and Draco's tempted to tell him to piss off with his sanctimonious opinions and narrow-mindedness about anything outside of his own small sphere of experience, but that same inconvenient tenderness keeps needling at him, and he can't muster up the spite. And he supposes this is what it's like, loving Harry Potter, this sort of inexorable, helpless affection, and wanting to take care of him, that Draco had seen on so many faces at the Gryffindor table in Hogwarts for those six long years.

"Okay Potter, I'm going to keep reminding myself that you inexplicably seem to know absolutely nothing about vampires." He holds a hand up to forestall Harry's outraged interjection. "Yes, yes, you were too busy at school with defeating a terrible Dark wizard and turning schoolchildren into a vicious guerilla army and snogging Ginny. You've had a very important and busy life. We get it. But surely you must have heard the rumours about vampires? Or was the Gryffindor dorm even more pathetic than I'm imagining? Veelas and vampires were all we ever thought about down in Slytherin." 

At the shake of Harry's head, Draco continues. "Vampires have always had consorts, Potter. Usually Muggle, because then they can combine the feeding and the fucking, so it's more convenient. If a vampire and a wizard are together, the vampire needs to find another blood source. People do it because a vampire bite is usually very pleasurable, Potter. It's part of their magical make up—the fangs release oxytocin into the bloodstream, and it mimics the rush of orgasm for the person being bitten."

The light in the corridor is a dim gold, but Draco thinks Harry might actually be blushing. And not for the first time, Draco wonders how he can be so unutterably filthy in bed, yet be so shy about discussing sex publically. Some weird hang-up from his horrible Muggle upbringing, he thinks. And if he's as shy as this now, with Draco, who he has fucked and been fucked by in as many ways and places as they have, then it makes sense that he got to this stage without knowing anything about (or, Merlin forbid, _trying_ ) vampire sex.

Harry's voice is low and breathy, and Draco doesn't think it's just because he's trying to be quiet. "So… it's not dangerous? And you and Raphael… you let him taste you?"

There's nothing for it, Draco knows. So he nods. "Raphael and I were together, on and off, for quite a while. First when I was studying for the Mastery, and then a few times when I went back to France for work. He's a good man and a great Magibiologist, Potter, even if he was acting the twat tonight. We only tried the biting a handful of times, because I wanted to keep things casual between us, and vampires have a tendency to get attached when they get a taste. I had heard about it, and I wanted to try it. Call it professional curiosity. Plus, it was a great story to tell Blaise and Theo."

Harry has a funny look on his face, something cold and distant and reluctantly covetous, Draco thinks, though it's mingled with a sort of dismayed arousal. His voice is flat. "Right, so you and Raphael were fucking your way around Paris and having this weird blood sex, and that's how you know that a vampire isn't behind the attacks at Hogwarts. Great."

"Yes, Potter, exactly," Draco replies patiently. "In tiny amounts, magical blood is extremely stimulating for vampires. And of course, our bodies respond to oxytocin the same way a Muggle would, so it works for us too. But I've seen vampires who are bloodsick from feeding on witches and wizards, and it's not pretty. And in all those cases, the vampire stopped feeding well before there was any significant core drain. I'm telling you, Potter, in my expert opinion, and based on in-depth research and lived experience—no vampire would be able to feed on those creatures or students for long enough to drain their cores, without being severely compromised. They wouldn't be able to survive that level of magical poisoning. We'd have found them lying there beside the victims if they had. That theory is right out. Now are you going to let it go?"

"Fine." Harry's reply is brisk, clipped down to razor wire. "Thanks for explaining it to me. And sorry if I got in the way back there, with Raphael. Anyway, I think I'm going to just go to the other room for a while, look over the notes again. You go to bed and I'll see you in the morning." He strides towards the door to Draco's old room, pauses with his hand on the brass handle.

Draco wants to stop him, wants to say something—anything!—that'll scrub that professional blankness from Harry's face. He wants to tell him how long ago it was that he last touched anyone other than Harry with any kind of tenderness or intimacy. He wants to tell him that even when Raphael was shuddering into him, eyes rolling in bliss, fangs buried in the meat of Draco's neck, and Draco felt the razor sharp points sending a lick of fire through his blood, and he came so hard it felt like his whole body was a pleasure point—even then, there was a small secret part of him that he held back. His heart, he supposes, which he'd guarded so carefully, until Harry kissed him fiercely and possessively one night outside the Leaky Cauldron two and a half years ago, and without any effort at all, opened Draco up for the taking. 

He wants to tell Harry that he had owled Raphael to break it all off later that night, after nothing more than that one kiss from Harry (but what a kiss, the desperate, hot slide of Harry's lips, his stubble an enticing torment, the way they couldn't seem to stop smiling into each other's mouths). That Raphael had been really sad. That he had hurt Raphael for Harry without even a second thought, that he would hurt anyone for Harry, but he knows that Harry would never ask him to.

It's all too much to think about, really, let alone to say, and he's helpless to do anything except watch as Harry turns the handle and slips away into the next room.

* * *

Harry doesn't remember falling asleep in Draco's swivel chair. It's not that he meant to, as such. He hadn't intended on staying away from their bed all night, but there was a tiny, mean part of him that wanted to punish Draco for… well, something, anyway. For having had stupendously good sex with an unfairly handsome vampire? Harry knows it's not rational, really. He and Draco aren't exclusive, they've never agreed to monogamy—never talked about their relationship at all, in fact. So Harry has no right to be so pissed off about this thing with Raphael. But he can't seem to help himself, can't stop thinking about Raphael's hand touching Draco with such easy familiarity. He can't stop remembering that Draco has been in Paris four times in the past year or so—four trips which Harry now presumes were interspersed with seeing Raphael, allowing him to taste Draco's essence, the part that makes him magical. 

Harry _knows_ he's being unfair. He could have gone off and had stupendously good vampire sex himself, if he'd wanted to (well, if he'd known that was even a thing, unlike everyone else in the whole world, apparently, who were all off shagging vampires it seemed). He just… doesn't want to. He can't help it, and he knows he's being hopelessly old-fashioned, but his silly heart seems to have decided that it wants Draco, and that's that, for Harry. He can't seem to muster up any interest in anyone else. Beside Draco, everyone else seems a touch dull, like their light shines dimmer than his does. Harry's tried, in the past, tried chatting people up, tried snogging them. It was never worth it, he realised, so he just stopped doing it, somewhere along the line. But that doesn't mean he could ask Draco to do the same. And he wouldn't have asked, only Draco never seemed interested in anyone else either. He had hoped… well, it doesn't matter what he had hoped. He just has to concentrate on what they have now, and try to forget about Raphael, hard as that might be when he's strutting around Hogsmeade looking like he just stepped off the cover of _Vamp Weekly_.

All in all, Harry really had meant to go to bed at some point, just as soon as he figured out all these confusing feelings and desires that are warring in him, but it had been a long night with too much brandy and high emotion, and he must have dozed off against the incomparable softness of Draco's chair-cushioning charms.

He wakes in the grey gauzy light of pre-dawn, but it's not the breaking of a new day that rouses him from his uncomfortable doze, but the heavy oak door to their room, which is banging, banging, banging, open and shut, over and over, in an increasingly frantic rhythm. 

Hogwarts is calling him. 

For a moment after he wakes, Harry can't work out what the castle wants from him. But then he sees the faint, anguished fluttering of Draco's kingfisher Patronus as it lurches sluggishly through the room towards him, Draco's voice a mere wisp of sound. He can't understand what it's saying, only that it's vibrating with a thread of fear and panic Harry hasn't ever heard from him before. And as Harry is searching for his wand, and starting to really panic, just as suddenly another Patronus barrels through the door—a unicorn this time, its horn pearlescent and gleaming as it curvets in front of Harry—and he hears a young, terrified voice emitting incongruously from the magnificent beast. 

"Please, Professor Potter—Harry—Professor Malfoy needs your help!"

* * *

Draco has been unconscious for almost a full round of the clock, but Poppy is confident that he's going to make a full recovery. The only sounds in the room are Draco's shallow breaths (he's alive, Harry tells himself with every faint sip and puff of air), the steady drip of Draco's own Core-Replenishing Potions as they filter into his bloodstream, and the reassuring hum of the core monitor that Harry conjured, now a gleaming orb of gold, far removed from the sick-looking brownish-red it had been when he first cast it. 

Harry supposes that the hospital wing should be familiar to him, after everything, but it feels like somewhere foreign, uncanny, with Draco so still and silent in the narrow bed. Harry can trace the breadth of his shoulders under the crisp rigidity of the hospital sheets that cover him, see the stretch of his long legs. He looks wrong in that little bed that's made for someone much smaller, all the character and colour leached from his face so he's unfamiliar and strange—still beautiful, but distant and untouchable, like a graven image on a tomb. The room is dimly lit, and there's a whiff of the censer in the air—a spicy, medicinal scent of burnt herbs and wet earth and old magic that makes this ordinary room into something arcane.

Harry hasn't left Draco's side—not for food, or clean clothes, or even to sleep. He's worried that he'll never sleep properly again, in fact—that every time he does, he'll be jerked out of it by yet another horrifying nightmare of the moment when he had burst into the corridor outside their room and found Draco lying cold and too still outside their door, with blood from that telltale vivid wound at his wrist still leaking. 

He had been in his pyjamas, barefoot, still sleep-rumpled and unguarded, and Harry thinks he must have been looking for him. So it's Harry's fault, Harry and his stupid, selfish pride, because when he had been sitting around brooding the previous night, he had asked Hogwarts to remove the interconnecting door into their bedroom. He had only meant to do it for a few hours, to carve out a little bit of space for a while, and to remove the temptation to just crawl into their enormous bed next to Draco and fuck the feelings away. But then he had fallen asleep, in Draco's chair, in the room they had shared so happily for all these long weeks, and Draco had had to go wandering in the corridors, and he hadn't been there when Draco needed him. 

Harry doesn't even know if Draco will want to see him when he wakes, but he stays anyway, because he's helpless to do anything else. Poppy has given up trying to shoo him out, and instead she's given him some warm blankets, and transfigured his chair into something a bit more comfortable, and left him to it. He can hear her now, the soothing rustle of her robes reminding him that at least Draco is safe now. 

When the insipid November sun finally makes an appearance, the curtain around Draco's bed moves, and the protective wards that Harry had Hogwarts set around the bed begin to shiver. Harry isn't letting a single person in unless he personally checks them first—he let his guard down, and Draco was the one to suffer as a result, so it's _not_ going to happen again.

It's just Kit, though, and Harry immediately drops the wards to let him in. Kit, that nervous little first year who still can barely talk to Harry without blushing, but who handles the Thestrals with an assurance and tenderness far beyond his years, and who saved Draco's life.

Kit looks drawn and exhausted after his shock, and Harry can't help but give him a rough, awkward hug, finding to his own mortification that he can feel the sting of sudden tears in his own eyes. He scrubs at his face with the back of his hand, manages a smile for Kit, and tells him, "He's okay, he's going to live. You saved him."

Kit is actually shaking now, and he sits heavily in Harry's chair. "Oh, thank goodness," he whispers. "I was so frightened, Professor. I didn't know what to do—he was so cold, and there was blood, and I could see his Patronus just sort of hanging in the air, it was hardly able to fly."

Harry places a gentle hand on the quivering wings of his shoulder blades as the boy cries quietly. "You did so well, you poor thing. You were so brave. And that Patronus you cast—I've never seen anything like it. You did just the right thing—Professor Malfoy's Patronus was so weak, it barely reached me. Without you, I don't know what would have happened. Thank you, Kit."

Harry doesn't say, you could have been hurt yourself. He doesn't say, if you had come along that corridor five minutes earlier, it might have been you who was attacked. He doesn't say, if you hadn't been up early to help Hagrid, Draco might have just died quietly and alone on the stone flags of the corridor.

He thinks that Kit knows. He also doesn't say, thank you for saving the most precious thing in my life, but he's fairly sure that anyone who looks at him now can see the contents of his heart, spilled out messily for everyone to recognise. 

Kit looks better, with a bit of colour back in his cheeks and the shivers starting to abate. "I had been practicing my Patronus Charm, after reading about you learning to cast it when you were thirteen. Because I'm twelve now, and I thought if I worked hard at it, I might be able to cast it too." He flushes, looks down at his hands. "I never managed it before."

Harry knows his voice is shaking when he replies, but he can't seem to stop the exhaustion and horror from bleeding into his tone. "Well, we're very lucky that you did. And you're clearly an exceptional student—the Patronus Charm is notoriously tricky, and it took me ages to learn, even with a great teacher. When all this has died down, I can give you some extra coaching, if you like. See what else you can do?"

Kit smiles properly for the first time, and then the clink of a breakfast tray intrudes into the stillness of the room, and he gets to his feet. "Thank you, Professor. And I'm so glad that Professor Malfoy is going to be okay. See you later."

Harry raises the wards up again, and lets himself sink back into his chair. He doesn't think he'll manage to sleep, but the memory of Kit's smile makes him feel a tiny bit better, and he allows the reassuring sound of Draco's steady breathing to lull him into a doze.

* * *

Draco's voice echoes back down the corridor to Harry.

"I find it _astonishing_ that you neglected to bring me a pair of shoes, Potter. After all I've been through, such terrible suffering, and now you want me to catch my death on these freezing cold stone floors. For shame!"

Even one day ago, Harry would have said that he would have given anything to hear Draco being a spectacular pain in the arse again. Anything would have been better than to have him lying, so still and silent, in that hospital wing bed. But then Draco had woken up, and within about five minutes of his return to consciousness had started trying to irritate everyone into letting him out of bed, and he's showing no signs of letting up on the campaign now that he's finally been discharged.

Harry had to admit to being impressed at how fast awareness dawned as those fierce grey eyes snapped open out of unconsciousness. Draco is tough, Harry has always known that, but Harry had expected him to take a transition period, some sort of recovery time, after waking. Instead, he had sat up in the bed, stretching and testing every limb as though preparing for flight, and then had started casting and recasting spells to gauge the extent of his core drain. Luckily, Harry had started the core replenishment so quickly that he was almost back to full strength already, and though Harry had been checking the core monitor obsessively, he had still nearly cried when he saw the familiar glowing ripple of Draco's wandless _Lumos_ spreading like syrup through his outstretched fingers.

Draco had lasted another half a day in the bed before he started threatening all manner of hexes on the next person to tell him to rest. Poppy had sighed heavily and told him that she certainly wasn't going to force a fully-grown man, an ostensibly responsible adult, to take the recommended recovery path for someone who had suffered such a traumatic core injury. Draco had simply smiled sweetly at that, thanked her effusively, and sent Harry to collect his clothes. 

Now he's dressed in some soft, shapeless trousers, thick socks, and one of Harry's old Weasley jumpers (because he may be insisting on getting out of bed, but Harry is going to wrap him up in as many layers as he can), and he's padding through the halls ahead of Harry, his litany of complaints a comforting distraction. Harry had indeed forgotten to bring him some shoes, and when he offered his own grubby trainers, the look on Draco's face was so reassuringly, comfortingly _him_ that Harry had laughed out loud. He doesn't _seem_ cross with Harry for abandoning him and causing him to be attacked, but they haven't talked about it yet, because Draco is as mindful as Harry about the need for privacy, and they're waiting until they get back to their room. Harry doesn't know how that conversation is going to go, and he's nervous, but the sight and sound of Draco being so wholly, ordinarily _himself_ is bringing him joy.

Draco insists on stopping in at the staffroom to show his face, because he's quite convinced that everyone will be desperately worried for him, and itching to know how he is. And funnily enough, it seems to be true, because when he goes through the door there's a ripple of surprise and then delight, and then Draco is being passed from one set of arms to another for kisses and hugs and exclamations of, "You're back!" He seems to be rather enjoying himself, Harry thinks, and can't quite hide his own fond smile when Draco conjures his kingfisher Patronus, now fully restored to strength, and everyone claps. Harry stays back, watching Draco as he moves from group to group, and grins as even Minerva envelops Draco in an unexpected—though not, judging by the surprised delight on Draco's face, unwelcome—hug. 

What would I have done, Harry thinks, if I had lost him? What would I have done if he had lost his magic—that special, integral part of him? What would I have done, knowing it was my fault? The chilling horror of it creeps through him afresh.

Draco passes close to him, and seems to see something in Harry's face, because he moves closer, presses a hand to Harry's chest. His hand is warm, and he turns his face to Harry as he moves closer. It's nothing so crude as a public kiss, nothing so unprofessional in front of the whole Hogwarts staff, but the ghost of everything they are to each other passes between them in the fleeting warmth of Malfoy's breath shivering over Harry's skin, the solid heat of him as he moves even nearer, the glimmer of amusement and affection in his smile. And then he's gone, summoned for yet more hugs and fussing by the Quidditch lot, but Harry feels warm again, and he allows himself to keep watching Draco, and lets himself hope that things will be okay after all.

* * *


	5. Speak of the Devil

Harry flicks a finger at the wall sconces in their bedroom, and they spring to life with a joyful pop of golden light. It's not yet late, but the November evening is drawing in, and time has that curious, elastic feeling to it after the last few days of no sleep and the perpetual alertness of a hospital stay.

Draco moves around their bedroom, shutting curtains by hand and sighing in pleasure as he eyes the fresh mound of pillows Harry asked the house-elves to provide for his side of the bed. He's still chatting, as if he's trying to make up for his two days of silence, and Harry realises that he's back to talking about the case in his usual dispassionate way, as though he _hasn't_ just almost been killed, or drained of magic, by the very person they're trying to capture.

"Well, they definitely managed an _Obliviate_ on me," he muses. "I can't remember a bloody thing after waking up to find that the door between our rooms was gone—you absolute prat—and leaving our bedroom. Whoever it was knew what they were doing, but I don't think they were expecting me to manage to get a Patronus out." He preens. "I suppose they thought they were dealing with an ordinary teacher. They didn't know that I'm a combat-trained Unspeakable with my intake's highest marks in Defence magic. If only they hadn't managed to hit me with that Jelly-Legs, I'd have had them."

Harry clears his throat. "Your Patronus was drained of power, though. It's a miracle it got to me at all, and it didn't have enough power to pass your message along. It was Kit who managed to call me in the end. He's the one who found you. Would you believe that he managed to send a corporeal Patronus?"

Draco whistles, low and surprised. "He's, what, thirteen? _Twelve_? The child must be an extraordinary wizard. I can't say that he's ever shown huge promise in my Charms classes, though I'll be putting him through his paces next time, see if he's been hiding anything else behind that milk and water attitude."

Draco stretches, locking the tantalising ridges of his shoulder blades and then rolling them with a groan.

"Right Potter, we need to really work on narrowing down our pool of suspects. The trouble is, I can't for the life of me imagine _why_ someone would drain a magical core. It's not as though anyone can actually use the power they drain, and these attacks seem completely random—it doesn't seem malicious or personal. There's nothing to link any of us with each other, and that's before you add in all the creatures that were drained. Of course, magical empaths can absorb power from other magical sources, but they're incredibly rare, and anyway, they wouldn't need to get it through the blood. None of it adds up." His eyes are alight with the thrill of deduction. "It's a real mystery, Potter. But"—and he yawns widely—"for some reason, despite having been in bed for two days, I find myself feeling tired again. Bath, then bed, I think. And back to this first thing in the morning."

Harry nods, but he doesn't trust himself to speak. He doesn't know how Draco can be so dispassionate about the case, anymore. It _is_ personal, for Harry, now that Draco has been harmed. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to detach himself from that. 

Draco has been moving around the room, gathering his toiletries, and collecting the largest and most fluffy of the fresh towels the elves supplied. But he must see something in Harry's face—the indelible mark of that helpless anguish he can't seem to shake—and he stops dead, eyes narrowing.

"Spit it out, Potter. You've been moping around like a wet weekend ever since I woke up. Whatever is the matter? You're not pulling this tortured martyr act because of me?" His gaze sharpens further, then devolves into vigorous eye rolling. "You are, aren't you? What is it—is it because I got hit instead of you? Potter, do you have some mad Saviour complex left over from all that stuff with Voldemort? You know as well as I do, you insufferable idiot, that this attack was opportunistic and purely random. It _would_ have been you, if you had just happened to be wandering around in the corridor at that time instead of me. And anyway, it was lucky it _was _me, and not one of the students. Someone with a weaker core might not have made it."__

Harry isn't sure if it's the blood loss or the exhaustion, but Draco doesn't seem to have worked out that this whole thing is Harry's fault. If Harry hadn't been a jealous twat, if Harry hadn't stormed off into the next room, if Harry hadn't blocked their connecting door off, if Harry hadn't fallen asleep, if Harry had _been there_ to keep Draco safe… The attack was the result of a chain of Harry's stupid decisions and Harry's petty actions. And he can't bear it anymore, he needs to explain to Draco, to apologise, even if it means Draco being angry with him, or leaving him.

So he sits on the bed, and tugs Draco gently down beside him, and he starts to talk. It's halting at first, because it hurts a bit to go over it all, but he does it. He tells Draco how sorry he is, and how selfish he had been, and how much he regrets what he did. It starts to get easier as he goes along, but just as he reaches the end of the litany, he realises that Draco is making muffled noises that sound suspiciously like amusement. He looks up from where his own hands are clenched in his lap, and is met by the sight of Draco, pink and shaking with mirth, undeniably and uncontrollably laughing at him.

"Jesus Christ, Malfoy. I'm trying to apologise here!"

With some difficulty, Draco manages to get himself under control, though a few errant gurgles of laughter escape him before he manages to speak.

"Potter, are you tying yourself up in knots because you think you didn't _protect_ me from the big bad criminal? You're seriously blaming yourself for this? Might I remind you that I'm at least a match for you as a combat wizard, and I have years of field experience in properly dangerous situations. A Jelly-Legs and some blood-sucking is far from the worst situation I've been in recently, let me tell you. How do you think I've been managing without you to take care of me in the field until now, you dickhead?"

He still looks amused, but when he sees and understands Harry's flinch, his voice becomes gentle.

"Anyway Potter, you've got it all wrong, as usual. I wasn't wandering the corridors like a tragic ghost searching for you. I was heading for the kitchens looking for some toast—I was starving after all the brandy. And I don't have some weird mind connection with the castle, so I can't just get it to rustle up some house-elves to do _my_ bidding whenever I feel like a snack.

"As to the other thing—I didn't mind you blocking off the door in the slightest, you self-obsessed weirdo. I could tell your feelings were hurt about the thing with Raphael. And I know you don't like talking about that stuff—oh don't shake your head at me, you emotionally-repressed hermit, you know it's true—and I wanted to give you a few hours to yourself. When you're upset, you need to work through things in your head before you can get over them. I wasn't going to go barging in begging you to talk things over with me, that would just upset you more. I was going to have my toast, and a nice lie-in, and then wait for you to trail in sheepishly after you'd brooded for a bit and then realised you were being a jealous prat." He looks contemplative. "And I never even got my toast. That snack- and magic-stealing bastard must be stopped, Potter."

Harry can't help himself laughing a little bit at that, because Draco does feel very strongly about toast. But even as he grins at Draco, he's humbled by a curious sense of wonder, because how does Draco know all that about him? Even Hermione doesn't seem to understand that—she's always nagging him to talk about things that upset him, which inevitably serves to make Harry feel resentful and under pressure and, in general, much worse about things. 

"Well, I'm really sorry, Malfoy. I had no right to be jealous of Raphael in the first place. You and I had never made things exclusive—" He's interrupted by an incredulous Draco.

"Hang on, Potter, what are you talking about? Raphael and I haven't been together in ages. We broke up—" He's blushing, suddenly, chest to throat to cheeks, that enticing spread of pink that Harry wants to trace with his mouth. "Well, we broke up the night you kissed me outside the Leaky after Luna's birthday drinks. I owled him when I got home that night."

"You broke up with him back then? But I thought you said you were with him whenever you went to Paris for work?"

Draco speaks slowly, as though explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. "Yes, Potter, but I meant way back, before"—he gestures vaguely and inadequately between them"—before this _thing_ of ours started up. Vampires are very territorial, you know. He would have sensed… well, he would have known that my heart wasn't in it, and it would have upset him. It didn't seem fair to string him along, when I knew that… that I wanted something—someone—else."

Harry feels the clutch of that small, cold thing loosen its claws from inside his chest at Draco's words. All this time, he thinks, all this time and Draco has been feeling _things_ too? Draco eyes him suspiciously from across the bed. 

"So no, Potter, I wasn't shagging Raphael all over Paris anytime recently. But you've had a few romantic entanglements of your own over the past couple of years, I'm sure?" He's trying for casual, but now that Harry is listening for it, he can hear the shaky thread of insecurity in the question.

"Not for me, Malfoy. I'm not very good at all that, you know me. One person is more than enough for me to have to worry about." Draco snorts inelegantly, but he seems pleased. "And speaking of worrying, I really am sorry about what happened. I should have been there, and I wasn't. It won't happen again."

Draco shifts on the bed, and captures Harry's face in his hands. It should feel gentle—especially with the look of tenderness on Draco's face—but it's not. The fierce tremble of Draco's cradling hands, the raw strength in his grip, the potential of the intensity and force contained in the cords and muscles and bones of him—things are never going to be gentle, with him. But Harry doesn't need gentleness.

"Harry," Draco says, quietly, still clutching at him, holding his gaze. "I don't need you to take care of me. I don't need you to watch over me. I'm able to take care of myself. But"—and he pulls Harry in for a swift, hard kiss,—"I like that you want to take care of me. And I want to take care of you, too. Even though you don't need me to."

He smiles then, that charming twist of the mouth that's so peculiar to him, before the smile is swallowed by another yawn—a huge, jaw-cracking, gape of a thing—and Harry thinks that it's about time they got ready for bed.

Draco seems to have decided to indulge him, and he sits on the bed and watches through the open door as Harry draws the bath. When the air is heavy with fragrant steam, he allows Harry to lead him into the bathroom, and he stands as meek as a lamb while Harry undresses him. He's so wrapped up that it's almost like an unravelling: Harry peels the butter-soft wool jumper off him, to reveal a soft cotton t-shirt, which gives way to a delicate, goblin-woven silk undershirt—one of the ones that Draco likes to wear under his robes, usually—and only once that's off does Harry get to see the finely-drawn stretch of Draco's collarbone, the alluring dip at the base of his throat, the shifting shadows across the muscles of his chest, the elegant flare of his ribcage. 

He stands unselfconsciously, and watches impassively as Harry drops to his knees and carefully eases those loose trousers off the slopes of Draco's hip bones. He's as biddable as a child when Harry gets him to raise first one foot, then the other, and tugs socks, then trousers, then underwear off him, until he's fully naked. The bathroom is a fug of steam, but Harry hits him with a strong Warming Charm just in case, and watches in fascination as the trail of his magic raises goosebumps over Draco's skin, sends a helpless tremble through him. 

Still on his knees, Harry leans forward just a touch, and presses his cheek flat against Draco's stomach, and stills for a moment. Draco doesn't move away, but instead lets one hand drop into Harry's hair and begins to stroke. Harry sighs contentedly, then moves to press a kiss against the rough line of hair leading down from Draco's belly, against the crisp curls at the base of his cock, and then against the very tip of it. Draco is too exhausted to be more than mostly-soft, though he twitches feebly against Harry's lips, but he still grumbles when Harry pulls away and stands to manoeuvre him into the bath. "In the morning," Harry whispers, and then shucks his own clothes so that he can enter the welcoming heat of the water too. Draco is already pink in all the places that the water laps against him, eyes half-shut, and Harry knows that the heat and the kiss of the water will have him asleep in no time. 

Harry reaches for Draco's shampoo ( _their_ shampoo now, Harry thinks, and even if it does seem obscene to pay eight Galleons a bottle, he likes to carry the scent of Draco with him when he goes about his day, so he'll keep buying it from that exclusive little apothecary in Hogsmeade forever, he supposes). It foams up instantly, and Harry pours water from one cupped hand over Draco's head. Quickly, dispassionately, but with infinite gentleness, he swipes the shampoo from crown to nape in a firm motion. 

And he's not good at taking care of people like this, really—he never had any experience of it himself, after all, and it is still a bit odd for him to have this unbearably intimate physical connection with someone (not when it doesn't involve chasing his own pleasure, anyway). He can't be quite sure if he's doing it right, but when he eases the pads of his fingers in wide circles at Draco's temples, he feels rather than hears Draco's groan, and when he sluices water through the glossy strands of Draco's hair, and tightens his grip around the length of it to squeeze the water out, he's pretty sure Draco whimpers a bit helplessly. 

After that, it seems easy—lathering up his hands with bubbles that smell of almonds and burnt brown sugar, rubbing soothing circles across the drooping wings of Draco's shoulder blades, hearing the squelch and slide of his hands as he spreads the foam across Draco's chest, down the rise and dip of his spine, through the water-sodden hair under his arms and at his groin, into the creases of his thighs, along the delicate jut of his ankle bones, between every one of his toes. When he's finished, Draco is rosy with heat, panting with satisfaction, and more than halfway to hard even despite his exhaustion, but his eyes are still drooping, and Harry swaddles him in two huge towels to dry him off before bundling him into their bed.

He doesn't say another word, just makes a small noise—a murmur, a coo of contentment—before rolling right into the middle of the bed and plummeting into sleep. Harry drains the bath, collects the towels, tidies away all their clothes—because, he thinks, if Draco doesn't need him for protection, then he has to find other ways to take care of him, and there's something profound and full of promise in all these minor, domestic acts of love. Before bed, he walks their rooms and reinforces the wards—Hogwarts rumbles around him reassuringly as he strengthens his security charms—and then he douses the candles. Sleep should have come upon him quickly, after the last few broken nights, but though he's loose-limbed and naked and curled up around the huddled lump of bedwarm skin that is Draco, the bubble of happiness that swells in his chest keeps him awake for a while. When his eyes do close, the last thing he's aware of is the steadying thump of Draco's heartbeat under his hand.

* * *

The calm can't last, of course, though for a while it feels as though it might.

They wake up the next morning, and Harry goes to teach his classes, and Draco rests for a few days, though he gets bored of being bed-bound and instead spends most of the time in the staffroom being brought cups of tea and reading old Muggle Penguin Classic novels that someone once stashed in a bookcase there and haven't been touched since.

Every evening they go over their case, and they eat and chat and sleep. And then every morning they wake up again, and sometimes they fuck, and sometimes they don't have time or don't feel like it, and then Draco is well enough to go back to his classes, and the days are so full and interesting and… just, _lovely_ , and Harry hates himself a little bit for being so glad about getting to be here, even though people had to have been hurt for it to happen.

Draco is deep in research on magical cores, and though he still hasn't managed to work out why anyone would want to launch attacks so widely and randomly, he's confident he'll find something.

Harry works with the castle to strengthen the wards even further—he places Auror-level sensor charms around the whole perimeter to alert him if a stranger breaches the castle bounds, he goes on night patrols, he spends two painstaking days keying the magical signature of everyone in the castle into the wards, so that if anyone the castle doesn't recognise enters the building, an alarm will sound. It's all routine Auror work, really, but it doesn't seem dull and pointless at all. It feels invigorating, like Harry is doing something important. He doesn't know if he can stop the attacks, but he can certainly try his bloody best.

He and Draco tackle the portraits again, together. A lot of the historical portraits respond well to Draco's particular brand of posh insouciance, so he talks to them, and Harry goes for the women and children, mostly. It's all highly enjoyable, being flirted at by buxom milkmaids or russet-haired pre-Raphaelite beauties, and playing hide and seek along the gallery wall with some of the wilder children, but none of them will talk to Harry or Draco about what's been happening at the castle.

The portrait of the centaur, who Harry had met on the day of the last attack, seems to be a spokesperson for all of the portraits, and he alone seems to be trying to explain what's happening to some degree. Unfortunately, everything he says is a classic example of unfathomable centaur gibberish, and Harry has given up trying to interpret his doom-laden pronouncements and incomprehensible warnings, which seem to revolve around urging Harry to ask for answers, but then refusing to give any.

December dawns, crisp and white as the inside of a good apple, bright with frost and the promise of festivities. Harry and Kit spend an enjoyable morning helping Hagrid to select twelve truly magnificent Christmas trees from the forest, and then they _Leviosa_ them into the castle, and Draco soon has every student in his senior Charms classes enchanting the decorations. 

He's gone for a wildlife theme, and every tree is soon groaning with bejewelled birds that really sing, tiny frost-tipped elephants that spray glitter from their trunks, monkeys with bells on the ends of their tails, so the whole Hall is a riot of colour and a clamour of cheer. Of course, Harry isn't entirely sure that Minerva fully approves of the ornate candy canes that turn into hissing, red-and-white striped serpents if anyone attempts to eat them, nor the miniature gold kingfisher decorations that seem to be charmed to fly around after Minerva, and turn into Santa hats when they land on her head. Harry suspects that Draco himself is behind charming those personally, judging by the amused gleam in his eyes as he watches the kingfishers zoom off with unerring accuracy whenever she appears. Hogwarts seems to be welcoming the seasonal cheer, and bunches of mistletoe appear over Harry and Draco with such alarming frequency that Harry has to wonder if the castle has something to do with it.

Then, one morning in mid-December, they have their first proper snowfall. The ramparts groan with snow; the grounds are blanketed; the Lake is a seething, rimey grey the exact shade of Draco's eyes. Harry wakes Draco to show him the pristine, unearthly whiteness, and Draco grumbles all the way to the window. 

"It's magical, Draco, hurry up before someone tramples through and ruins it!" 

And Draco rolls his eyes and replies, "Snow is _weather_ , Harry— _magic_ is what's actually magic." 

But, despite his complaints, he stands at the window behind Harry, chin hooked over Harry's shoulder, arm locked around his waist, and stays there until he's looked his fill.

After lunch, they head out for a walk, which very swiftly becomes a vicious snowball fight. Well, Harry thinks, if Draco will insist on wearing that ridiculous fur hat, then he deserves a snowball in the face. Draco disagrees vociferously and with aggressive retaliation. Half of Harry's first year DADA class joins in with enthusiasm, swiftly followed by a handful of Draco's seventh year Charms students. Draco and his team may be outnumbered, but they have the advantage in magical skill and power. Harry and his lot are slower but dogged, and of course they have strength in numbers. It's a fairly even fight, all in all, and within no time they're all breathless and gasping with laughter, and soaked to the skin.

The fight is declared a draw, after much heated debate, and Harry and Draco send the students into the castle, under strict instructions to dry off and go straight to the kitchens for hot chocolate before dinner. A fast Warming Charm later—which Draco insists on performing, because he's trying to keep his magic active after the replenishment—and they continue their interrupted walk. Harry doesn't care what Draco says—when you grew up in a manicured little suburb in Surrey, the majesty of a Scottish snowscape _is_ a magical sight. They scramble all the way up the hill beyond the paddock, and even Draco sighs in admiration at the sight of the Lake spread out before then, its surface shivering and writhing like something muscular, something living. Across from them, the distant chimneys of Kinlochdubh send smudges of smoke up into the sky.

The light is starting to fade, and Draco starts to make discontented noises about getting dinner. As they start to head back towards the school, Draco makes a crow of delight and plunges deeper into a copse of trees. "Wickengreen berries! I haven't eaten these since I was a child!"

He knocks at a snow-laden branch, starts to paw the dusting of snow off the berries that cluster like crimson pearls at the ends of the branches. Once the berries are clear of snow, he plucks some bunches off the tree, and begins to pop each tiny jewel-like berry into his mouth. Wordlessly, he hands a bunch to Harry and gestures at him to eat. The berries are firm and colder than the air, and when Harry bites into one, he feels a tangy burst of flavour over his tongue. It's tart and crisp and ripe with something… Harry can't quite work it out at first, but then he feels the startling rush of it and he realises it's magic. 

It's just something tiny, the magic of something fresh and living, a cheeky little pulse of it in every bite, but it's delicious, and Harry's learned enough about his magic to feel the foreign sizzle of it through his bloodstream. He laughs out loud, pops another in his mouth, and another and another until the handful is gone. Draco laughs back at him, tells him between mouthfuls about how he and his mother used to go out foraging for wickengreen every December around the Manor grounds, about how rare the tree is, how it only grows in ground that's saturated with magic, about how it's just a hybrid of rowan and wintergreen, but together they make something magical, just as Harry can taste with every bite. Used as protection against Dark Magic, the berries are the only known antidote to Baneberry Potion, but mostly they're just good to eat in the biting cold of the first snowfall. He talks and talks, and his nose is pink from cold, and his mouth is a juice-reddened lure, and Harry just eats more wickengreen berries, and watches him, and thinks to himself, _I will never forget this day_.

* * *

Draco isn't sure when he realises that something is wrong. They eat berries until their fingers ache with cold, and then they walk back to the castle under lowering evening skies, just in time for dinner. The grounds seem quiet, but that's not unusual at this time, in this weather, though when they reach the entrance hall and they notice the empty hush of it, they cast uneasy glances at each other. They turn by unspoken agreement towards the Great Hall, but before they can take more than a few steps, they see McGonagall's Patronus burst through the doors, calling for them, and they're sure, all at once, that it's happening again, no matter that they've tried so hard to prevent it, and without even thinking about it, they both break into a run until they crash through the doors into the Hall to find the whole school assembled inside, teachers and students huddled together at their respective tables, and Minerva looking grim and pale as she stands on the raised dais at the end of the room.

Beside him, Harry is white as salt but already scanning the crowd, cataloguing the teachers' table, and assessing the situation. It's at times like this that Draco is grateful for the years of intensive training the Ministry provides for its elite corps. He can't think about the pale, frightened faces of the children in the Hall, he can't stop to wonder if anyone is missing from their house table, he can't speculate about what would put that look of grave concern on Minerva McGonagall's face. All he can do is kick into action, just like he's always done in these situations before—situations where, if he started thinking at all, he would freeze up with horror. There's a comfort in it, in the mindless routine, the rote performance of monitoring charms, dark magic detection spells, the checking and strengthening of protective wards. 

Across the Hall, Harry strides along between tables, performing the same litany of spells as Draco. He reaches the end of the Hall, and takes a moment to press a hand to the lintel of the huge stone fireplace. At once, Moalie the house-elf appears, and after a moment of serious conversation, she disappears. Within seconds, steaming mugs of hot chocolate appear on all the tables. _Good thinking, Harry_ , Draco thinks in admiration. The students all begin to pass the mugs around, and start to sip, and soon they all have a bit more colour in their cheeks, and the deafening silence is filled by a low hum of chat.

Harry and Draco reach McGonagall at the same time, and the lines of tension in her face ease just a touch when she smiles at them both. "Thank goodness you're both alright. For a moment I thought… well, you're here now. Gentlemen, some students are missing."

Harry sways a bit, and Draco elbows him sharply—Hogwarts and its students mean the world to Harry, and as a result he's taking this whole case personally. It's written all over his face, but they can't afford to do that in this moment of crisis. He needs Harry razor-sharp and ready to fight, not caught up in some emotional maelstrom of self-castigation. His pointy elbow seems to do the trick, for the moment at least, because Harry straightens up and sets his mouth (and it's worth the glare he gives Draco to see the moment that the Professor gives way and the Auror takes over). 

"Right. Minerva, you fill us in on everything, as quickly as you can." He gestures to the rest of the teachers. "We need some of you patrolling, checking for anything suspicious. Go in pairs and stay alert." A gang of them nod and get up, moving swiftly towards the door.

"Harry," McGonagall murmurs. "Before we begin, I think we need to fire-call the parents and get them to come and collect their children. We can't ensure their safety here."

Harry and McGonagall look at each other for a quick, quiet moment, and then Harry nods decisively. "You're right, Minerva. Once you've given us a rundown, you start contacting parents. Take someone with you to help, though—I don't want anyone wandering the castle alone." McGonagall nods. "Now, what can you tell us about the missing students? Names, last known locations?"

"Two first years, I'm afraid, Harry. Rebecca Bailey and Kit Adare." 

Harry's whole body stiffens, and he shifts closer to Draco. Draco hears Harry make a tiny noise, so small that it barely trembles in the air, but he can feel the agitated flurry of Harry's magic gathering at the place where the back of his hand is brushing Draco's. Kit—Harry's little fan with the nervous smile, and the gentle hands, and the amazing Patronus. Kit, who saved Draco's magic, and maybe his life. Draco suddenly understands how Harry feels. This is personal after all, no matter how much he tries to stay detached, to keep his mind clear and his magic measured.

"We're sure they've been taken? They haven't just sneaked off somewhere together? Teenagers, you know." Even as he says it, Draco knows he's clutching at straws. Minerva McGonagall wouldn't be shutting Hogwarts for anything other than a true emergency.

"There's no doubt at all that they're missing, I'm afraid. They came in from a snowball fight, and were supposed to go to the kitchen with their friends for hot chocolate. They were at the back of the group, and Rebecca's friend Queenie tells me that she thinks something happened on their way in, because she saw them both looking upset and whispering to each other in the entrance hall. But they joined the group heading to the kitchen, only they never made it there. When the rest of them arrived and noticed they were missing, they went looking for them. No one could find them."

McGonagall's face is eloquent with misery as she goes on.

"Queenie is adamant that Rebecca wouldn't just disappear without telling her. They were due to compile their owl order for Christmas presents over dinner. Rebecca was very excited about it, apparently. As soon as the poor child came to me with her concerns, I had some of the teachers, and all of the ghosts, do a sweep of the castle. There's no sign of them, and your wards show that they didn't leave the building, Harry. They're here, but they've been hidden away. This… this is a grave matter. We must find them, or I fear the worst."

It's a testament to Harry's strength of will that he barely flinches at that. "I see. Thank you, Minerva. Right, you go and start fire-calling the parents. Will you let Rebecca and Kit's families know?" 

Minerva looks ashen. "I will of course contact Rebecca's parents immediately. Unfortunately, Kit has an… unorthodox family background. His parents are not in his life, and his guardians are not on the Floo Network. But I rather suspect an owl might do the trick, and if that doesn't work then I shall personally pay them a visit. I shall go ahead with that now. And the rest of the teachers can spread out between the houses and start helping the students to pack their trunks. That will at least keep everyone occupied."

"And Draco and I will start running some detection spells and see if we can find any trace of them. If only we had my map!" He tugs at his unruly froth of curls in frustration. "Minerva, when you get a chance would you contact Hermione and ask her to see if she can get in touch with the curators of the exhibition?" He slides a glance at Draco. "Do you remember the memorial exhibition they staged at the British Museum of Magic last year? It's gone on tour, and the bloody Marauders Map with it—the one thing that might actually help us here! Hermione will track it down, but I think it's in Manila at the moment, and it's the middle of the night there."

"If anyone can retrieve it at short notice, then Hermione can," Draco reminds him. "And anyway, it's not doing us any good to stand around here talking about a map that's on the other side of the world. Let's just see what we can do without it, for now."

So that's what they do, Harry grim-faced and thrumming with nervous tension, and Draco thinks he himself probably isn't much better. They pace the floors and they run diagnostics on the wards, and they scarcely speak except to decide on where to check next, and all the while it's as though the two students have vanished into the ether (which, Draco thinks, is not entirely an impossibility, given the vagaries of this old castle).

And then, all of a sudden, the wards start an urgent dinging and they realise it's the first of the frantic parents arriving to take their children home, and they have to go and help with that. There's a frenzied rush to tinker with the wards around the main fireplace, so that parents can Floo into the castle. Then Hagrid arrives to say that a queue is forming at the main gates, since all the parents within Apparition distance have just come straight to the school, and Draco has to spend more precious time setting up a magical cordon to allow parents to filter in and out from the gates. Before they know it, two hours have passed and they're absolutely no further along in finding the missing children, and Harry has fresh lines of strain around his mouth and eyes, and Draco can feel his own magic jostling and seething with the impatient need to be _used_ , properly, to do _something_.

Finally, they begin to extricate themselves from the crowded entrance hall, away from all the parents who are just relieved that their own little darlings are safe, and are chatting jovially and shaking Harry's hand and saying things like, "Isn't it lucky we have an ex-Auror on the staff! No better man to sort this mess out!" Draco sees Harry wincing, and silently but fervently vows that the next idiot to come out with any kind of selfish, unhelpful platitudes is going to have _something_ hexed off, professional propriety be damned.

Harry leans into Draco, despair heavy in every line of his body, and whispers so the parents can't hear, "I have an idea. I think we should go and talk to the centaur portrait again. Even if the portraits still aren't talking about this, he might be able to give us some clues. Though whether we'll be able to decipher anything he—" He breaks off suddenly as he catches sight of a man coming through the front door, a man who is clearly distressed, and who looks so like little Kit that he simply must be his father.

Harry looks confused. "I didn't realise… I thought Minerva said his parents weren't around?" 

Draco nods sharply, and together they make for the man, who is looking more agitated by the minute. Draco sees the moment when he notices them approaching, and more specifically, when he recognises Harry, and his shoulders relax a fraction.

Harry moves forward, hand outstretched. "Mr Adare, is it? Harry Potter. And this is Draco Malfoy."

He nods, returns the handshakes, but he's clearly distracted, peering over the heads of the throng of parents and children who are filtering out the main doors with trunks and owl cages and winterweight robes bobbing along behind them.

Draco allows Harry to handle this part, just to begin with anyway—because even all these years later, he's still never sure how people are going to react to his dirty name, to the haughty arrogance of his aristocratic mouth, to that distinctive silver-gilt Malfoy hair. 

Though he's worked hard to clear his name, and salvage his reputation, at least he can say that. He's spent years working on himself after leaving school; starting with probation, which began as soon as Eighth Year was over, when he took an intensive Muggle Studies course and spent a year living and working with his Muggle liaison team, a Squib and her husband who ran a B&B in Stoke Newington. 

It had started as something to do to get the Ministry off his back, something to tire him out enough that he might get enough sleep every night, something to assuage the cold lick of fear that had started creeping through him sometime during the misery of Sixth Year—the fear that his parents were wrong, his friends were wrong, the Dark Lord was wrong. The idea that he had always been taught to believe—that having a full ancestral line of magical kin somehow meant anything at all, that he should hate and disdain anyone whose blood wasn't "pure"—well, no one knows magical blood better than Draco, now, and he can be sure down to the very plasma and platelets of himself about how very wrong he had been. And that year living in the Muggle world had been far too good—much better than he deserved—getting to see the everyday magic that Muggles could create, using only their ingenuity and their hard work and their unquenchable curiosity about the unknown things in the world. 

It's why Draco keeps flats in Muggle areas, and why he carries a mobile phone even though he has to ward it to high heaven against magical surges before he can ever use it, and why he stays with Belinda and Johnny every New Year in the same faded B&B on Carysfort Road. Because he wants to remind himself, every day, that the blood that carries his magic is pumped by a heart that once carried only hate and prejudice. Because he never wants to stop remembering how wrong he _had_ been, so that he can remember how to be right in future.

So Draco knows, deep down, that he has changed. But he also knows that he can't always expect other people to know that, that he doesn't deserve people doing him the kindness of forgetting, or forgiving, the person he used to be. But—and he breathes a sigh of relief—Mr Adare's eyes barely flicker when he hears the Malfoy name, and the man does look older than they are, so probably doesn't remember what a hideous little snot Draco had been at school, and he thinks it might be safe for him to interject.

"Shall we move to the Headmistress' office? We can talk in private there." Adare eyes him curiously, incomprehension and then worry blooming in his expression. 

"Why do we need to talk in private? I'm just here to collect my child! Where is she?" He turns to the crowd, begins to bellow. "Fran? Francesca? Are you there?" His face, when he looks back at Harry and Draco, is a mask of terror. "Please tell me she's safe! Where is she?"

Harry is already moving, placing an arm over Adare's shoulders, and gently but firmly steering him towards the door. His voice is a low, soothing hum. 

"Mr Adare, please come with me. Is your daughter Fran, the Hufflepuff Beater? I saw her earlier—she's in the Hall. We'll bring you to her shortly. But we need to speak to you about Kit." 

Draco feels distinctly uneasy—neither he nor Potter teaches Fran, but she's an excellent Beater and they both know her from House Cup matches, and how did they never realise that she and Kit are siblings? And surely McGonagall would have mentioned it? Even as he thinks it, he sees Adare stop moving, body quivering as though under an assault, and he realises that something is very wrong, even before Adare says in an agonised whisper, "Why are you talking about Kit? What does my brother have to do with any of this? Have you… have you found him?"

* * *

Adare is practically in tears by the time they get him out of the crowd. He keeps looking from Harry to Draco, and Draco sends a surreptitious Patronus to McGonagall, hoping that she can somehow shed some light on the confusion.

When Adare speaks, it's almost a whimper. "Why are you asking me about Kit? You can't mean that something has turned up, after all this time?"

Harry's voice is so calm and assured that even Draco feels himself relaxing a bit. 

"Mr Adare, I'm so sorry if there's been some confusion. I thought that Kit must be your son—you look so much alike. I must have got mixed up with another child—I can only apologise for any distress that I've caused you."

Adare blinks slowly, confusedly. "I do have—I had—a brother called Kit. He was my youngest brother, born when I was thirteen, and people did always tell us how alike we were. I was already at Hogwarts when he was born, but he adored me, always looked up to me. But… he died… when he was eleven. He was here at Hogwarts with you, Professor Potter, he started in Ravenclaw the same year that you did. Though you would probably have known him as Christopher—Kit was the name we used for him at home, but he wanted to use his full name here. He was so excited to be so grown up, off to Hogwarts, finally." 

His mouth trembles, voice thready with grief and guilt, and Draco feels the same pity that he can see in Harry's face. Draco doesn't remember any Christopher in Ravenclaw, but he wouldn't—he wasn't particularly interested in anyone at all back then, except for other Slytherins, and Harry bloody Potter. 

"I _knew_ he looked familiar," Harry whispers to Draco, looking ill with worry. "I didn't know him, though—I didn't recognise him. If only I had!"

Adare sighs shakily and continues. "He was the sweetest kid, so gentle and kind. But he wasn't very happy here at first—he had always been at home with our mother, found it hard to make friends. And one night, he disappeared from his dorm. They never found his body, just…" He gulps once, twice, then gets control of himself. "Just some blood, in the Forest. Dumbledore tried to tell us that he must have run away, got my mother to keep it quiet. He hushed the whole thing up. She was broken after that, never got over it. Never stopped looking for him, until she… until she died. But I knew. Kit would _never_ have left us. If he had been alive, he would have found his way back to us."

It still doesn't make sense, none of it does, because Kit— _their_ Kit—looks so like this man, and sounds so like the boy he is describing, but their Kit is only twelve, and this man's brother, well, he'd be the same age as them, if he was even still alive. But there's something off about the whole situation, and Draco flicks through the facts as he knows them. He thinks about the sad little boy who showed up to Hogwarts alone before school had even started, who cried over a poorly Thestral, who could cast a Patronus better than most wizards double his age, who has no parents to call when he goes missing. 

There's no moment when the locked door of the mystery clicks open for him. There's no dawning light of clarity. There's just a sense that something is very, very wrong here, and that they need to find Kit _right now_ , because maybe then this seething, tangled mess of a case will start to make sense.

"Mr Adare, I'm so sorry," Draco says, "but Harry and I have to go. We have to go _now_. Your daughter is waiting for you in the Hall. I'm sorry, but we have to attend to an urgent matter."

And maybe it's cruel, to leave the man alone, confused and tear-stained, in a Hogwarts anteroom, but Draco knows they've lost so much time already, so he just takes Harry by the wrist and pulls him out of the room. And because Harry is Harry—driven by instinct, sharply observant—he goes readily, because Draco knows he can feel it too, that creeping, insidious sense that something is very wrong.

"The centaur portrait. Now." Harry's grim instruction is the only thing he says, as they run towards the Duelling Room. Draco's mind is whirring, every thought process has been distilled down to pure, cool reasoning, every fact is being weighed and measured and catalogued. There's no time for words.

The centaur is there in his frame, forelegs scrabbling for purchase on a rock at the very front of the painting as he peers anxiously out, as though he's looking for someone. As though he's looking for _them_. Harry skids to a halt in front of him, palms his wand without blinking, raises it in a steady hand. 

"You answer me now, or I swear to the founders I will blast you right out of that frame," he says, and Draco sees a ripple of nervous tension pass through the centaur's glossy flanks. 

"It's one of the students, isn't it? Where is he?"

The centaur clasps his human hands together despairingly. "I have told you over and over, Harry Potter, we may not speak against the castle! She holds her own dear and we are bound to her magic. But I implore you to ask for that which you desire, and you shall receive it!"

Harry slams his hand down on the frame in frustration. "I _have_ asked! I have asked you and asked you, and you keep spewing the same old rubbish!"

But it hits Draco then, and he's utterly aghast that it took him so long to get there, and maybe proximity to Harry is addling his brain after all, for him to have missed something so simple.

"Harry. _Harry_! It's the castle," and he groans in exasperation as Harry stares at him uncomprehendingly. "Ask the castle! You have to _ask Hogwarts_ to help you!"

He watches as Harry looks around him in wonder, at the stretch of golden flagstones at his feet, at the worn elegance of the timber panelling that lines that walls, at the elegant spar of the columns at the arched windows. He sees the bones of the castle, the bricks and mortar of her, and then the way the living heat of her was formed and sustained by all the generations that have trod her floors, and laughed and loved and cried and lived and died in her. She's waiting for Harry, he can feel it.

He raises a hand, touches the door lintel, and Draco sees him smile and push his palm gently against the pull of the castle's magic, hears the rasp of his broom-callused hand against the skin-warm stone. 

"Please," Harry says, quietly. "Please, tell us where he is." 

And it's just as the centaur had said, just as Draco had expected, because with a juddering bang the door slams wide open and a flickering trail of sconces springs to life, the line of light casting a path that they just have to follow, and as one they begin to run, following the way the castle lays out for them with each winking candle.

They run until their breath seizes in their throats, up and further into the castle, and every step of the way is lit up by the beacons of the wall sconces. Stairways slide into place for them with a grinding roar of stone on stone; doors slam behind them as they race through shoulder to shoulder; rooms open up ahead of them like dominoes falling in their inexorable path. They understand, now, what they castle has been trying to show them. Hogwarts is leading them safely to their destination. It's only when they reach a familiar corridor, see the tattered tapestry of poor misunderstood Barnabus the Barmy, and the last light flickers on and stays lit, that they realise where they are.

They're standing outside the Room of Requirement, which shut itself up the night of the Fiendfyre, and which hasn't been opened since, no matter how many people paced the stones in front of that stretch of blank wall.

"No." Draco doesn't realise that he's spoken it aloud, but Harry's head snaps around and he reaches out a hand and squeezes Draco's, firm and solid and _there_ , and all of a sudden the memory of the roar and thunder of the blaze dims a bit, and instead of the searing kiss of flame, he concentrates on the feel of Harry's hand in his—the vulnerability of him, the very human, inherent weakness of flesh over bone. If Harry can be so human, and still so brave, then so can Draco. He steels himself, nods once, and they approach the Room together.

The door is there. It shouldn't be, because they haven't walked past three times, and they don't even know what it is that they're looking for. But the door is there, nonetheless, and Draco realises that Hogwarts is offering this to them. They step through.

It takes a moment to realise what's happening inside, where Rebecca lies on the floor, looking waxen and lifeless in the sick light of a wavering Lumos. Kit is slumped sideways over her outstretched arm, so still that at first Draco thinks that maybe they have it wrong, that maybe Kit has been harmed too, but then they step closer and he can see the line of Kit' throat working, Adam's apple bobbing obscenely, as he swallows, swallows, swallows.

"Kit." Harry's voice is heartbreaking in its gentleness, but the broken sound of it drops like a stone into the silent room. "Kit, stop."

Kit whips himself upright so fast that he's just a swooping blur in the half-light. His face is wet with tears, and Draco can see that his eyes are almost fully black from feeding lust. His mouth is a blood-darkened mess, the only bright spot is the gleam of wandlight against the tip of each fully extended fang. 

A vampire, then, Draco thinks, but a vampire who can feed off magical blood, a vampire unlike any other. Under the crawl of horror, he feels the whisper of fascination, the bright, inquisitive nudge of his academic brain. 

"Don't try to stop me!" Kit cries, and his voice sounds sticky and raw with grief and blood. "If you come a step closer, I'll kill her." 

Harry turns to Draco with the question in his face, and Draco nods. Kit could break her neck before they even see him start to move, if he has the full extent of vampire reflexes. 

"Wands down, now—roll them over to me. And now, you need to leave. I have to do this. It's the only way." His voice is steady, but the tears are falling again, and there's a tremble in his narrow shoulders when he kneels again and takes Rebecca's wrist in his hand again.

* * *


	6. The Drop of a Hat

Before Kit can raise Rebecca's wrist again, to seal that voracious mouth over the seeping wound, Harry speaks. His voice sounds lost in the heavy silence of the room, and he has to work to suppress the quiver of fear that threatens to rise up in his throat and choke him. This is still Kit, he reminds himself. This is still a child.

"I don't think you want to do that, Kit. I don't think you want to hurt her. Why don't you just stop? We can help you."

It's all very well for Draco, Harry thinks, who has worked with vampires and studied them and _known_ them, to say that vampires aren't to be feared. But Harry rather suspects that even Draco hasn't been faced with the sight of a child with eyes as opaque and hard as graphite, the dangerous curve of fangs bared in a snarl, a chin limned with crimson gore. Because Harry is frightened. Because _this child_ has the desperate ferocity of someone with nothing to lose.

Kit is still clinging to Rebecca's wrist, his fingers slipping in the runnels of blood that are already drying tacky on the soft frail line of her inner arm. His touch is gentle, almost tender, at odds with the savage hiss of his reply.

"Of course I don't want to do this! Do you think I would choose to be a _monster_? Rebecca"—his voice cracks on the name, brittle and exhausted—"Rebecca is my friend. I didn't want to have to hurt her."

Harry crouches, slow and careful, until he's at eye level with Kit. Steady, he thinks, easy does it. "You don't _have_ to hurt her, Kit. I'll bet Professor Malfoy has a vial of Core Replenisher in his robes right now"—he looks back and up at Draco, sees him nod—"if we give it to her now, she'll be back on her feet in a day or two. If you stop now, it won't be too late."

It's always impossible to tell how someone is going to react in a fraught situation, but Harry and Draco still jump when Kit flinches at Harry's last words, and then begins to cry out loud, with the tragic, gasping, hiccuping tears of a little child.

"Don't you see?" he howls, "It's already too late for me. It was too late fifteen years ago when someone did this to me! This is my only chance." He shudders, bends again over Rebecca's wrist, and begins to suckle. 

Draco moves, finally, taking small steps closer to Kit, but holding his hands up in careful surrender all the while. Harry can see Kit noticing him, watches the panicked rolling of his eyes, sees the skittering glances Kit casts even as he continues to feed, like a nervous animal. Draco pads like a cat, silent and intent, but before he gets close enough to really threaten Kit, he stops and sinks to his knees on the flagstones. He's still in his outdoor robes, the brushed grey wool dewy and snow-damp at the hem, and he looks totally relaxed and unthreatening, each hand a loose upturned curl on his knees.

"You fed from me," he says to Kit gently, his voice almost casual. "You know my magic, so you know you're safe with me. And I have some very close friends who are vampires, you know. But none of them can do what you do. None of them can drink magic from the blood. Will you tell me what you do with it? Where did all my power go?"

There's a pop, a reluctant wet slurp, and Kit pulls away from Rebecca again. He wipes a hand across his face, blood and snot and tears smearing messily with the action, the gesture so childlike and helpless that Harry's heart clenches with pity.

Kit is eyeing Draco incredulously. "What do you think I do with it? I use it, of course! I'm a wizard too you know, even if you two don't remember me. And… and"—he tries for viciousness, but on his small pale face it just comes out as pathetic—"your magic was delicious. I gobbled it all up and it kept me casting for weeks."

Draco nods, and Harry realises that he's keeping Kit distracted from feeding. It's a good approach, he thinks, because Rebecca is pale and unmoving and Harry doesn't know how much more her core can handle.

"Kit, I'm an expert in blood magic. I trained at the _Robert-Houdin_ in Paris under Gluckman herself—and I know a Ravenclaw like you knows exactly what that means. I know my stuff. And I can say with confidence that no vampire has ever been able to use magical blood. Plenty of witches and wizards have been turned into vampires before, but the change in the magichemical makeup of the blood means that all their residual magic is converted into the physiological magic of vampirism." He looks at Harry, sounds almost amused. "For the Gryffindors in the room, that means that vampire magic beats wizard magic." Kit makes a small sound that might be a laugh, though it turns into another sob along the way. "Once a witch or wizard is turned, they don't keep their wizarding magic. So tell me Kit, what makes you different?"

Kit looks from Draco to Harry, his eyes huge and tragic in the light of his _Lumos_ , bloody mouth working, and Harry can see the overwhelming wash of misery and regret as it sweeps through him, and he looks down at Rebecca and drops her arm. And then, with one scarily swift vampire movement, he moves from her side and throws himself bodily into Draco's lap, curling himself up like a question mark against Draco's chest, and burrowing in further as Draco raises the cradle of his arms to hold, to comfort, to contain him.

"It's not fair!" he wails, the sound an agonised plea from where it's muffled against Draco's body. "I shouldn't have even been there that night! I hated the Forest, I didn't want to go but they dared me and they were all laughing at me and I just wanted them to like me!" It's all pouring out of him now, an unstaunchable flood of pain that has been drowning him all these years.

He pulls back, looks up up Draco, eyes still onyx-dark, but liquid with human emotion again. " _You_ know what it was like, that night. You were both there. I was only supposed to sneak in and pick a leaf from that old Nux tree, just to prove I had really gone into the Forest. It was a game of truth or dare. I had to do it! But then you were there, and you were screaming and running away and I didn't know what to do and he"—he chokes, gulps again—"he was there and the unicorn was dead and there was so much blood…" He trails off into a fresh flurry of tears.

_The unicorn Patronus_ , Harry thinks, staring at Draco in horror. 

Draco nods, and begins to rock back and forth, one arm still cradling Kit and the other rubbing circles over the shuddering planes of his back. "I know, I know," he murmurs. "I was so frightened too. You saw me run. And I understand now. It was the unicorn blood, wasn't it? You poor, poor boy."

Kit nods. "I didn't mean to! I would _never_ have done it on purpose. We all know what drinking unicorn blood does. But I was running, and I fell, I slipped right in the unicorn blood, it was everywhere. I didn't know what to do, I was covered in it, and it splashed everywhere and got in my mouth and it was so cold, and I tried to spit it out but I _felt_ it." His whole body shudders with the memory of the horror. "I felt it going through me, like ice in my veins, like something was wrong with me and would never be right again. And I ran then, I didn't know where I was going, I just kept running and running, and I was lost and it was dark, and then there was a drop. I didn't have time to stop. I didn't even see it! And then I was falling. And that's all I can remember, until I woke up and I was in Kinlochdubh and I was like _this_. The vampires said they found me dying, there was no way to help me unless they turned me. So they did."

Harry realises that he has tears in his eyes, tears for his young self sickened and terrified by Quirrell as he knelt over the unicorn, and for Draco who ran screaming in terror out of the forest, and for little Kit, who was another casualty of that night of horror, it turns out.

"I understand now," Draco says. "Unicorn blood is so powerful, it stays in your system forever. And because unicorn magic comes from a core, just like ours, it would have acted as a sort of carrier for our kind of magic, one that even vampire magic couldn't overwhelm. So you have both wizard magic and vampire magic in you?"

Kit nods miserably.

"I didn't realise, at first. I thought I was just vampire. I lived with them in Kinlochdubh for years, drinking Muggle blood. It was only last year, when some of my friends sneaked a vial of magical blood out of their parents' stash. It was just supposed to be a bit of a party, get a bit tipsy. They all had a sip and started giggling and falling around the place, but when I took some, all I could feel was my magic rushing back to me. I waited until they passed out and I drank the rest of the vial and I cast a _Lumos_ for the first time in fifteen years and I just cried and cried. And it's like Hogwarts knew, because that summer I got an owl across the Lake, with my Hogwarts letter, as if it knew I had never finished First Year. And my… well, my adopted parents, they said I should go. I didn't want to, I knew people would think I was a monster if they knew what I was. But I wanted to come back, so badly. I wanted to be a wizard again."

“How did no one recognise you?” Draco muses. “I know you used a different name, but still, _someone_ must have wondered... I suppose, even though you haven’t aged, you’ve spent fifteen years as a vampire.” He mutters as an aside, “The physiological changes to accommodate the fangs do rather alter the facial structure, and what—you changed your hair a bit? “ Kit flicks an errant lock off his face defiantly and nods. “Amazing what people will miss when they’re not expecting to see it, isn’t it?”

Draco has everything under control now, Harry realises, with Kit huddled in his arms for comfort, and the boy's story spilling out like blood from a wound. It's over, he thinks. It's really over. 

Draco pats Kit again, tilts his chin up and gives him a reassuring nod. "I think I know how to fix things for you," he says, smiling fully at the blaze of hope that flares to life in Kit's eyes. "But first, Harry is going to take his wand back and help Rebecca, okay?" Kit nods, eyes fixed trustingly on Draco, and Draco rolls the vial of replenisher to Harry and nods at him. Harry moves unthinkingly, massaging the replenisher down her slack throat, casting healing spells on her wrist, and finally putting her under a Stasis Charm. Draco keeps talking the whole time.

"When did you realise that your magic was running out?" he asks Kit, and Harry's head snaps up at that, though he keeps working on Rebecca. "That's why you had to keep feeding, isn't it? The two kinds of magic are warring in you. You need to keep topping up your magic? Borrowing from other magical sources?"

Kit draws a huge breath, and looks sick with relief when he sees Rebecca safe in her bubble of healing charms. "I eked it out for as long as I could. I didn't want to hurt anyone. And poor Leticia…" Harry remembers the sheen of tears in his eyes as he cared for the Thestral, the gentle rub of his thumb over her silvered scar. "I just needed to top it up a bit, every so often. I never _wanted_ to be like this. But… but… it keeps running out. The creatures were enough, at first. But then I started needing more, and stronger magic. I needed real wizarding blood. But even then, even after you, it kept running out. And that's what happened today. Rebecca asked me to cast a Drying Charm on her, and my magic just sputtered out. She saw the whole thing, she could feel how cold my skin became. She knew there was something wrong. We argued. She was going to tell the Headmistress!" His expression hardens again, that sideways gleam of something dangerous sliding back onto his face at the thought. "Why should I have to give all this up? Why should I have to live with those monsters? It's not fair!"

"Do you know," Draco asks, "that you're not bound by the curse of the unicorn blood? You didn't kill it, you didn't mean to drink it. Magic recognises intent, Kit, I know you remember that much. I can remove the unicorn blood from your system, do a magical transfusion. But you'll still be a vampire." His voice is filled with regret, with compassion. "You died that night, and nothing can bring you back to what you were. But you can live a full, happy, long life as a vampire, if you want. I can do that for you."

Kit shakes his head, furiously and frantically. "No!" he shouts. "I won't do it! I'll do whatever I have to, I can't live as a monster forever!"

Draco looks at him, long and appraising and totally calm, and then he nods. He keeps a hold of Kit, but he brings his left arm up to his mouth and starts to unlace the cuffs of his robe with his teeth. Once he has them trailing open, the creamy sheen of his inner arm exposed, he speaks. "You know what you have to do, don't you? You can't keep doing this forever. You're hurting too many people. Blood demands blood, Kit. Draining the core isn't enough, is it? You need a sacrifice."

Harry starts to move, ripping his own sleeve up to the elbow as he goes, because he knows what Draco is about to do, and he can't allow it. And Draco looks up at him, gives him one fond eye roll, and smiles that sweet, heartbreaking smile, before he speaks again. "I knew you'd try this, Harry. Absolutely not. I invoke my life debt now, the life debt forged in this very room. You have to let me do this. I command you, by the power of the debt I owe you." And Harry feels the magic shimmer into being around him, the cold swell of it somehow ancient and unshakeable, and he finds himself stopped in his tracks by the power of it. 

"Life magic, Potter," Draco says ruefully. "It recognises what I owe you. I'm sorry, but I can't let you stop this." He shakes his arm at Harry, the ruined stain of the Mark vivid even in the halflight. "My blood is tainted already, Harry. I can't ever hope to be free of this. It seems fitting, really, that something good should come of the last of the Malfoy bloodline." 

He looks straight at Harry then, and his eyes are clear and utterly intent, and Harry knows he really means to do it. And Harry can do nothing at all, frozen in place as he is by the ancient magic of the life debt, unable to move or speak or beg Draco to stop. Draco continues, voice light and steady, as though he isn't about to offer himself up to save a child without even a second thought.

"I just want you to know, Harry, that these few months have been the happiest of my life. I never thought I'd get to have something like this—what we have. Merlin knows I don't deserve it. And I'm so, so sad to have to go. And it isn't really any use to say that I love you, because I'm going to leave you now, and it wouldn't really be fair. But… I think I have to tell you anyway, because it's true. Call it my last selfish act?"

He pauses, gently slides Kit off his lap, and pulls his sleeve up fully. "I'm ready," he says, and after one last look at Harry, he closes his eyes, and pushes his wrist gently against Kit's mouth. And Kit whimpers, starts to sob again, but he nuzzles once against the blueish shadow of the veins, and then his fangs descend fully into Draco's skin, and he snarls into the first suck.

Draco's body jerks taut at first, like he's in pain, but as Kit continues to feed, he relaxes into it until he's fully lying down. He doesn't look at Harry again, doesn't ever open his eyes to watch Harry's impotent agony, his rage and horror. Time seems to slow, with Harry still unable to move or even speak, no matter how much he struggles against the paralysing weight of the life magic. The room is silent except for the obscene wet sound of Kit feeding, and the ever-slowing sigh of Draco's breaths, and Kit crying, crying, crying.

Until, all of a sudden, Harry notices the sound of swallowing has stopped, and Kit's tears are louder. And he sees Kit taking Draco's arm away from his mouth, placing it gently on the floor, and Draco's eyes open in confusion, and Kit smooths Draco's hair back with one bloody palm, and he says, simply, hopelessly, "I can't."

* * *

It's like a miracle, really—another coming back from the dead, in a way. Draco is weak, but very much still alive, and by the time he gets one of his vials of core replenisher into himself, he's even strong enough to sit up. Kit has stopped crying, and is sitting in silence next to Draco, who incants aloud that he declares his life debt discharged. And then Harry can—finally, _finally_ —move again, though once he's crossed the room and has Draco in his arms and can kiss the sharp hinge of his jawline and bury his face in the crest of Draco's shoulder, then he feels like he might never _want to_ move. He murmurs a constant litany of recrimination— _you bastard… don't ever… I thought… please don't…_ —but he know his voice is so relieved and tender and full of joy, that all Draco must hear is, "I love you, I love you, I love you too."

Harry's Patronus brings Minerva and Hagrid running, and Hagrid carries Rebecca to the hospital wing, while Minerva walks with her arm around Kit and Harry envelops Draco in his most careful _Leviosa_ and transports him as though he's made of glass. It doesn't take long to explain everything to Minerva, but Harry is sure that she already knew some, if not all, of the story about Kit already. And once Draco is sitting up, propped in lordly fashion against a mound of feather pillows, he explains to everyone what he thinks they should do.

Kit will need to have his blood cleansed to remove the curse of the unicorn blood. It's tricky magic, even Harry knows that, and Minerva looks concerned at the idea. But apparently, it's a straightforward enough process when you know how—and Draco smirks almost like old times as he smugly assures everyone that he, of all people, knows how. But—and this is the real problem—cleansing the blood will also strip away the vampire magic that saved Kit from death.

"The blood cleansing spell essentially strips the magic out of your blood," Draco tells Kit. "Usually, in the case of a wizard or witch, the process would involve transfusing other magical blood back into you—blood from someone powerful, like, ooh, Harry here. But we can just use donated blood for this, because you don't need magical blood. The vampire magic will work just as well on Muggle blood." He smiles encouragingly at Kit. "You died, which is unfortunate—for many reasons, obviously!—but mostly because it means that your magical core dissolved. And because you had vampire blood in your system when you died, your central magical system is now that of a vampire. All this time, the unicorn blood has been just lurking in your system, acting as a conduit for any core magic that you absorb. But once that's gone, you will rely solely on vampire magic, you understand?" Kit nods, tremulously at first, then more firmly. 

"Good," Draco says decisively. "For what it's worth, Kit, I think you're making the right decision. You would never have been happy, if you had done what needed to be done to get your wizarding magic back." Kit smiles at him, and Harry wonders if Draco knows that he has a new fan.

"There's one more thing, Kit. And I need you to understand this, and make sure that you agree to it, because the last time you didn't get a choice. If I perform this spell, and strip your blood, you'll need to be turned again. You'll have to drink directly from the veins of a vampire, because without any magic at all to sustain you, your body will fail and you'll die, just as you would have done that night, if the vampires hadn't saved you. Do you understand? And do you consent?"

Harry wonders why this has to happen. Why does another young boy have to look his own death in the face, and choose the path that he has to walk alone? Kit is right, Harry thinks. It's _not_ fair. None of it is.

Kit waits, and thinks, and the adults in the room can do nothing but sit helplessly and wait for him to make his decision. When he speaks, they hear the new strength of decisiveness in his voice.

"I'll do it," he says, "on one condition. I don't want my brother to know. My family… they're Purebloods. They wouldn't want… well, they wouldn't want a creature in their family. I've hidden what I became from them for this long. You must promise to keep my secret. You mustn't tell Robert. Do you agree?"

Draco studies him carefully before nodding in agreement, though Harry suspects that he's privately resolving to try and talk him around at some point (much as Harry himself is, and if he knows Minerva McGonagall, she is too). Kit has been away from his family for so long, but Harry had seen the agony in Robert Adare's eyes when he spoke of his baby brother. And vampire blood or not, and (admittedly, slightly disconcerting) slow ageing process aside, Harry knows in his heart that Robert would have his brother back in any capacity that he could, if he knew it were possible.

But now Kit has made his decision, everything seems to move quite quickly, and Harry has to concentrate on the practicalities of the procedure. Draco is hooked up to a drip of replenisher, to ensure that his own magic will be strong enough to perform the transfusion, "Though really, Potter, a magical transfusion doesn't require huge reserves of strength, but rather a delicacy of casting and a subtlety that means it's just as well that I'm still around."

Harry has to summon Raphael, because he's the only vampire that Draco trusts to keep the procedure a secret, and they made a promise to Kit, after all. Harry Floos the Ministry and finally tracks him down, and though Raphael is surprised to see him, when Harry tells him that Draco needs him, he instantly agrees to arrange a Portkey escort to get him back to Scotland as a matter of urgency. So at least Raphael's lingering affection for Draco has some benefits, Harry thinks.

And once everyone is in place, and they've all tried for a good night's sleep in the near-empty school, they assemble once more in the hospital wing. Draco is up on his feet, though he's still pale, with telling smudges of blue shadow under his eyes. Harry is redundant for the procedure itself, though he is doggedly hovering near Draco in case he starts to tire. Raphael looks bemused by the whole thing, and Kit is white with strain, tethered to blood bags in one arm, and a drainage tube in the other. All in all, Harry has had better Saturday mornings.

Draco begins the spell with his usual pragmatic lack of ceremony—a reassuring pat on Kit's shoulder, a wink at Harry, some showy wandsmanship (subtle casting my arse, Harry thinks), and a crisp incantation— _Purgate Sanguis!_ It's working, Harry can tell—the drainage tube is steadily leaking blood, and when Draco whispers a _Revelio_ over it, Harry can see the toxic-looking ooze of particles of unicorn blood, lambent with a sickly sort of iridescence.

Once the blood leaving Kit starts to run clear and pure crimson, Draco starts the IV to transfuse new blood, and it's all so quick and easy that Harry gets a fright when Kit suddenly starts to look ill and drawn, and moans a low, pained sound. 

"It's time," Draco tells Raphael. "Quickly, now. We don't know how long his body can last without magic."

Raphael nods, raises his own wrist to his mouth, and smiles at Draco as he allows his lethal-looking fangs to pierce his own skin. The blood wells up instantly, shocking and lurid, and he holds his wrist up to Kit. And that's when Harry realises what Kit is doing—what he's probably been planning all along, in fact—as he presses his lips closed and turns his face away. 

Harry moves without thinking, throwing himself half across the bed and trying to forcibly turn Kit's head so that he can drink, drink and be saved. But Kit shakes his head, presses his mouth shut as tight as he can, Raphael's blood smearing uselessly over his chin. Raphael looks desperately serious, and he sounds furious when he tells Harry to stop. "We will not force our way of life upon this child," he says. "It is his choice to make. You must respect this."

Kit has tears in his eyes now, and he can't help but groan again, the cords of his neck strung tight with pain. Harry wants to take his hand, but then he remembers how Kit had died. After falling from such a height like that, Harry can only guess how broken Kit’s poor little body must have been, and he’s worried that he’ll hurt him. Kit coughs a sob out, the sound emerging wet and desperate from his heaving chest. “It hurts,” he whispers.

Harry knows he's crying, can't seem to stop himself. "Please, please," he babbles, "Kit, don't do this. You have a brother who misses you, a niece who would love to know you properly, so much to live for. Please! Drink!"

Kit shakes his head again, a minute, agonised movement. Harry drops to his knees at the bedside, buries his head in his hands. He doesn't think he can watch Kit let himself die, not after all this. But then Draco is there, right behind, moving him out of the way with an ungentle shove. He's raging, Harry can tell, absolutely vibrating with fury.

"Enough!" he shouts, his voice a whipcrack. "I did _not_ almost die twice to have you just chuck your life away, you ungrateful little brat. If you're going to die here in agony in front of our very eyes—and you are _sadly_ mistaken if you think that bloody Harry Potter is going to be able to forgive himself for this, never mind that it's your own selfish fault—then you're going to listen to me first. You have a brother who misses you so desperately that he cried like a child when he talked about you. You have a mother who died of a broken heart from missing you. If you think that the fact that you're a vampire—not a monster, not a _creature_ , just another Magical Being like anyone else in this bloody room—is going to change anything about the love your brother has for you, then you are stupider than I could have imagined and definitely don't deserve to be in Ravenclaw."

Kit shudders, a full-body ripple of wretchedness, but he turns to look at Draco, and he's listening.

"And what's more, you selfish child, I'm not going to make this easy on you. I'm going to tell your brother about every single agonising moment that it took you to die. I'm going to show him your broken body. I'm going to tell him that you weren't brave, and it wasn't quick, and it wasn't painless. I'm going to tell him the truth—that you died suffering because you were too cowardly to face him." He's shouting now, looking as vicious as Harry has ever seen him. "Do you hear me, Kit? I'm going to tell him!"

There's one moment of silence then, the room reverberating with the shock of Draco's words still hanging in the air, before Harry sees rage start to clear the cloudy pain in Kit's eyes, and with supreme effort, he grabs Raphael's wrist and lets himself lap at the puncture wounds there. He swallows with effort, the sound loud in the hush of the hospital room, and gives Draco one last hate-filled glance before his eyes fall shut and his chest rises, then falls, and doesn't rise again.

The deathly stillness can't last for longer than the space of a few arrested heartbeats, but Harry watches Draco's knuckles whiten and flex as he reaches for Kit's hand and grips it tight.

And then there's a soft murmur from the bed, and Kit stirs, and sits up, and Harry hears the broken sound of Draco finally breathing out as he falls to his knees and buries his face in the small, cold, forgiving clasp of Kit's hand.

Around them, Hogwarts gives a shiver, that beguiling ripple of magic that Harry barely even notices anymore, and settles again with a contented-sounding creak of stone. Kit is safe.

* * *

"I don't like it any more than you do," Harry says aloud, alone in their room—which he supposes he has to start thinking of as just _his room_ , now—and he realises he has stopped finding it odd that he's talking to the castle. He gives the wall an absent-minded stroke, and then levitates the last of Draco's bags onto the pile of luggage, already neatly packed and waiting for Draco's departure. The scarred oak wood of the door creaks heavily in its frame with a disapproving sound. Harry has to agree—the sight of Draco's part of their life together so neatly and easily tidied away is making him heavy-hearted.

But it's not even as though Draco will be gone for long, this time. He's going to spend Christmas in France with his mother, but Harry has promised to spend New Year's Eve with him at a B&B in London—and why they've booked a meagre double room in some dingy spot in Stoke Newington when Harry has a perfectly good king-sized bed in Grimmauld just a quick Apparition away, Harry doesn't know, but Draco says he wants to introduce Harry to some important people, and as far as Harry's concerned, he'll go wherever Draco wants him to. 

Draco for his part, says he wishes that he'd known sooner how biddable Harry could be when given regular orgasms. Harry doesn't tell him that it's the tentative but repeated declarations of love that are doing the trick in making him so compliant, but he thinks Draco probably knows. It's a strange thing, to take so much meaning from the words, "I love you", but what is magic but the words of an incantation made with intent, after all?

And what a joy, to get to say those words, and mean them, and hear them repeated back with their own layer of meaning. So far, they're still quiet, whispered words—words used in the darkness, muffled by the press of mouth on hot skin; words shared like something precious as Harry presses ever so slowly into Draco from behind, in the quietest part of the night when it feels like they're the only ones in the world awake; words alive with meaning through simply being sketched onto skin with the most fleeting press of hands at the dinner table; words groaned in those incoherent, frenzied moments when the crack of flesh on flesh nearly drowns them out; words that become interchangeable with other, more prosaic, words, so that _fuck_ , and _yes_ , and _please_ , and _more_ all carry the weight of love behind them; words that make everything mean, somehow, more.

They've had two blissful weeks of learning how to speak to each other with this new shared knowledge behind their words, and it's not enough, but then again, Harry doesn't think any length of time with Draco will ever be enough for him. And now it's Christmas, and Draco is leaving Hogwarts because their case is wrapped up, and Minerva has already found a permanent Charms teacher to take over. The DADA role is proving harder to fill, though—something about the idea of the position being cursed—and Minerva has offered to continue to pay Harry's salary for the rest of the year, until they find someone to replace him. Robards signed off on it with a demented glint of joy in his eyes, and Ron said it wouldn't be any harm to keep Harry on unpaid leave from the DMLE, to demonstrate that the Ministry doesn't tolerate insubordination in its ranks, even if it _is_ the Saviour of the whole wizarding world who was acting the dick. Which, Harry thinks, is probably fair. 

And if he's honest, he's glad to get to stay at Hogwarts. He wants to see his NEWTs and OWLs students through to the exams. He wants to get to see who can produce a Patronus by the end of the year, and work with the students who can't, to see why not. He wants to try the Boggart lesson again, and get it right this time. There's so much more he wants to do, and at least this way he gets a bit more precious time to try to fit it all in.

Harry looks around the room again, to make sure everything is packed up, and slips out into the corridor. Draco should have been back by now, and Harry wants to get down to see the Thestrals, and say goodbye to Hagrid, before Draco has to Floo away for Christmas. He's gone for a fly across the lake to Kinlochdubh, for one last visit to Kit. They've been meeting every day since Kit was turned, and though Kit was angry with Draco at first, for essentially bullying him into turning, Draco is unrepentant, and totally insistent that once Kit gets over his prejudice against vampires, that he'll be fine. 

And funnily enough, he seems to be right. Kit is already cheering up about the whole thing—his adoptive family in Kinlochdubh is delighted to have him back, and Harry knows that he's been owling his brother Robert regularly since his turning. They haven't met yet, but Harry is certain that it won't be long before Kit feels brave enough to start. And Raphael has offered to bring Kit to France for an extended stay, and Kit is excited about getting to see a bit of the world outside of Scotland for the first time. He really is a lovely kid, after all, and Draco insists that he _did_ save his life with that unicorn Patronus (conveniently ignoring the fact that Kit was the reason for the attack in the first place). Kit still staunchly maintains that he only sent his own Patronus because Draco had managed to cast _his_ before being subdued, and it was nothing more than a ruse to prevent discovery, but Harry doesn't believe that Kit would ever have gone through with really harming anyone. Draco agrees.

All in all, Harry thinks, Draco has wrapped things up pretty nicely, though he seems rather emotionally invested for someone who has always insisted on keeping a strictly academic interest in his cases.

And speak of the devil, Draco is striding towards him along the corridor, still wrapped in his winterweight flying cloak, and flushed and rumpled from the journey across the Lake. Harry is already reaching for him before they meet, and Draco seems content to move pliant and responsive under the greedy press of Harry's hands against his sides, and the possessive slide of Harry's mouth on his. He smells of clean skin and woodsmoke and sky, and Harry breathes him in with that familiar sense of wonder at getting to have him, here, like this, after everything.

"You won't stay for a few more months?" he asks between kisses.

Draco shakes his head. "Something tells me that McGonagall is looking forward to seeing the back of me—in my Professorial capacity at least. Something about my lessons needing to be more age-appropriate? Less dangerous? My style of teaching might have gone down okay under Dumbledore, but McGonagall is a different kettle of fish.” He laughs, kisses Harry again.

The warmth of Draco's mouth is a distraction, but Harry knows time is short, so he pulls away reluctantly. "Your bags are all ready," he says. "Shall we take a quick trip to the stables before you go?" Draco nods briskly, though his eyes linger on Harry's mouth as they stroll towards the stairs.

One more kiss can't hurt, Harry thinks, but one turns into two and three and then he loses count, because once he has Draco gasping into his mouth with ferocious intent, and one hand sliding across the elegant curve of Draco's lower back, and the other buried in the silken fall of Draco's hair, then nothing else seems quite as pressing as doing more kissing, harder and faster.

A genteel cough from behind them makes Harry pause, and really, he thinks, it's just as well that all of Draco's clothes seem to have far too many buttons and lacings and layers, as if designed to slow Harry's questing hands down, because otherwise Minerva McGonagall might have got an eyeful more than she was expecting on an afternoon walk through the staff corridors.

"Good afternoon, Professor Potter, Unspeakable Malfoy." She nods at them encouragingly, and waits as Harry untangles himself from Draco and rakes a hand through his own dishevelled curls. Draco himself looks pristine, of course, if a bit red and swollen around the mouth.

"I was hoping to catch you before you leave, Unspeakable Malfoy. We owe you a debt of gratitude for your superb work in getting to the bottom of the attacks. Without your invaluable assistance, I fear the outcome would have been an unhappy one." Her smile breaks like the sun on stones, and Harry is amused to see Draco smiling helplessly back at her, and blushing like a schoolboy at the unexpected praise. 

As usual when discomfited, Draco becomes extra genteel. "It was my pleasure, Headmistress, and I thank you for your generous hospitality and staunch support throughout this endeavour." 

Harry laughs out loud at that, and elbows Draco hard in the ticklish part just below his ribcage, earning himself a quelling look from both Draco and Minerva. 

"It was a good result, alright," he agrees, "though I'm not sure that Kit would ever have really been able to go through with it, when it came down to it. And I think you would have got to the bottom of things yourself, Minerva, sooner or later. But I agree that Draco was bloody brilliant."

Draco coughs, looking startled. “Well, I was counting on the magic of the wickengreen berries in my blood to deflect any properly Dark intentions he may have harboured. But I must admit, I had strong hopes that good would win out when it came to Kit, and indeed it did. And of course, it was a team effort in the end.”

Minerva's voice is crisp. "Indeed, Professors. But I disagree with your assessment of the case. I rather do think you were needed here to help with this—both of you. Hogwarts was calling out for help with this, because it recognised Kit as one of its own lost children. I didn't understand what it was asking, or why it was hiding things from me." She smiles at them again, and there’s a hint of remorse in it. “I am filled with regret that Albus kept this child’s loss from me. If I had known a child in our care went missing, well… But what’s done is done. And you know, gentlemen, I have always loved this place, and it has been my home for many long years. But I have always _known_ and understood my place here. I think, perhaps, that this case needed the insight of two people who know exactly how it feels to be lost here, to be searching for footholds on a path that seems too dark and fearsome to tread alone."

Harry has to swallow against the lump in his throat, blink against the sudden sting of tears in his eyes. Draco moves closer, almost imperceptibly, and Harry feels the reassuring nudge of the back of his hand against the back of Harry’s. It helps.

“You’ll forgive me this odd flight of fancy in my advancing years, I hope, gentlemen—but I think, perhaps, Hogwarts needed you both to come to her aid. You served her admirably. Please be assured that there will always be a place for you both here, in whatever capacity you choose.”

And with one last meaningful glance, and a final raised eyebrow at the untucked tails of Harry’s shirt, she’s gone back down the stairs, leaving Harry and Draco to stare after her in bemusement.

After a moment of overawed silence, Harry muses, "I'm going to miss her so much when I leave. I know I'll see her when I visit, but it won't be the same. There's something so reassuring about how persistently and reliably unimpressed she is by me."

Draco makes a choked off, frustrated sound, and throws his hands in the air. "I cannot believe I'm going to have to actually spell this out for you, you unmitigated idiot." He reaches over and holds Harry's face in place with one hand, eyes alight with exasperated fondness, and something bright and mischievous. "She wants you to stay here. She practically said it outright, only I'd bet my wand that she's waiting for you to come to her, so she can be sure she isn't pressuring you into a decision."

Harry knows he's probably gaping unattractively at Draco, but his astonishment is so great that he can't do much more than stand there with his mouth open. "Hang on, what? She wants me to stay here? What, to teach?"

"Well, it wouldn't be to solve the mystery of the magic-guzzling vampire child, would it, because I sorted that one out for her. Yes, Harry, to teach! What else, you dolt? Have you _seen_ the way your students react to you? She'd be mad to let you go, now that we know what a good teacher you are. Have you really never considered this yourself? Sometimes I actually worry about how dense you are, you know."

Harry says faintly, "But. But I'm an Auror."

Draco smiles. "Are you?"

Harry searches for the words he needs, but he doesn't think that anything he says could be _big_ enough, momentous enough, to encompass the feeling of hope that floods him as he listens to Draco. To stay on at Hogwarts? To get to teach every day? To spend his life building something unshakeable, to create a legacy all of his own—something freely chosen, and all the more precious for it. It seems impossible, but if Draco says it, then it must be the case. He's smiling at Harry with such heart-stopping generosity, like all his gladness is bound up in Harry, and it all seems a bit much, all of a sudden. 

He shuffles closer to Draco, buries his face in the beguiling warmth of Draco's neck, anchors himself in the steadfast clasp of Draco's arms. "I'm a teacher," he says disbelievingly, the words muffled by Draco's skin but sounding right, somehow, as all well-cast spells do when the intent becomes word. "I'm a teacher."

Draco nods, tightens his hold on Harry.

"Yes," he says, simply, gently. "Yes, you are. And if you're staying—and I had hoped you would—then I wonder if I might give you your Christmas present?"

He slips one arm away from Harry, fumbles in the pocket of his robe, uncharacteristically clumsy, and blushing inexplicably with it. After a moment, he holds his hand out, palm up. It's an offering, Harry thinks, but no, it's more than that. He takes a proper look at Draco, then—at his proud expression, at the helpless, hopeful tremble of his lip, at the nervous skitter of that mercury gaze. It's a plea, Harry understands. 

Harry takes it—it's nothing fancy, an old key, iron by the looks of it, and well-used over time—holds it with deliberation, as though it's something delicate.

"I thought," Draco stutters, that same enticing blush deepening as he speaks, "that perhaps you might like this. It's a key, you see—well, of course you can see that. That is to say, it's a key to a house. A house that I bought. My house. Or… I was hoping, if you like… our house?"

"A house," Harry says carefully. "A house that you bought."

"Yes," Draco replies, sounding helpless, like there's nothing else for it, like he couldn't say anything else even if he tried. "A house that I bought—here, in Hogsmeade, because even though I have to go away for work, I would like somewhere that I could come back to, for good. A house that I hoped you would share."

Roots, Harry thinks, somewhere in between saying " _Yes, yes, of course, yes,_ " and kissing Draco with all the force of _how much he wants this_ behind it. Foundations, he thinks, as he laughs and pokes Draco in the stomach and kisses him again, a bit tearily this time. Home, he thinks, at the feel of the cold bite of iron against his palm when he closes his hand around the key.

Around them, the castle shivers contentedly, dims its lights, tightens up the chinks in its stone wall to keep them cocooned in their pocket of warm corridor for a little longer. Every kiss is a promise made, every true word of love leaves its own reminder, every pledge of forever casts its own lasting spell. With a sigh of cold stone and ancient magic, the castle settles back into its foundations, basking in the feel of the innate power of another one of its children come home for good.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥
> 
> Hello and thanks for reading! Please come and say hello on Tumblr - [I'm @tackytigerfic](https://tumblr.com/blog/tackytigerfic) on there!


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